


I Could Write It Better Than You Ever Felt It

by harryandmolly



Series: I Could Write It Better Than You Ever Felt It [1]
Category: Bandom, Shawn Mendes (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Punk, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Miscarriage, Nipple Piercings, Oral Sex, Public Blow Jobs, Recreational Drug Use, Slow Burn, Smut, Underage Drinking, Unplanned Pregnancy, Warped Tour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-06 23:39:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 54,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19073035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harryandmolly/pseuds/harryandmolly
Summary: fuck growing up. this is freedom, this is life, this is youth – 2007 Warped Tour style.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> I’m dedicating this fic to the author of the first fics I fell in love with as a curious middle schooler on Quizilla, soxlongxjimmy. Thanks for the memories.
> 
> Lyrics attributed to All Time Low and Jack's Mannequin.

Val rolls over, blindly scrabbles for the cherry red Sidekick blaring “Miss Murder” under her tufted black PB Teen comforter.

**“Raf Calling”**

Val stifles a knowing smile, though she’s alone in her bedroom. She answers, lifts the phone to her ear.

“How much do you love me?” he asks, a self-deprecating chuckle in his voice.

Val giggles back. “Enough.”

+

Rafael and Valentina Moreno were born at 6:43 and 7:04 (respectively) on the morning of April 22, 1985. From then on, it was chaos.

Two was quite enough children for ambitious professors Miguel and Fernanda Moreno. They were scholars, children of knowledge, who wanted a small, quiet family. They envisioned docile walks on the beach, Saturday trips to museums, maybe the occasional University of Miami football game.

They got Raf and Val instead. The twins were at each other’s throats nearly from the time they were born – Miguel tells a story every holiday season of placing both babies in the same crib to bond when they were a few months old. The new parents turned around for a minute and looked back to see Val rolling on top of Raf trying to smush his face into the cushions.

From then on, separate cribs.

But the twins, despite their ongoing hostilities, couldn’t be separated. It was as though their energies thrived on one another. One summer when they were 12, Raf left for sleepaway soccer camp. A few days in, Val woke her mother up in the middle of the night in tears begging them to bring her brother home. He came back at the end of the summer and two days later she threw an ice cream cone in his face.

Miguel and Fernanda were faced with a new reality – noise. Their kids were loud before they even picked up their respective instruments. The Morenos thought music lessons would be a good outlet for their wild children, so they had them classically trained from a young age. Once again, their good intentions wrought chaos. Valentina was a menace on the drums – though a very talented, well trained menace. And Rafael was a gifted guitar player.

It wasn’t until they were 14 and started sharing practice space in the Morenos’ garage that they could be in the same room without ripping each other’s heads off.

And then, against all odds, they joined forces. The Moreno twins finally discovered they were stronger together than apart. That’s not to say they didn’t still fight like cats and dogs, but they loved each other just as viciously as they bickered. Miguel and Fernanda could live with that. They had to.

Streets of Gold was a stupid pet project, it wasn’t supposed to be anything. Until it was.

Val was original music buff of the family. She used to sit in her closet with the door shut and the lights off listening to her dad’s record collection. It made her feel cool, listening to old vinyl. But she didn’t really get it until she got around to hearing The Ramones’ “Rocket to Russia” for the first time. Everything changed then for the Morenos.

Raf was hesitant at first – could he really let himself like something Val discovered, something Val thought was cool? But he couldn’t hold out long. Because it was cool. It was really cool.

Valentina became the Encyclopedia Brown of pop-punk. You could name a song and she could tell you what band, what album, what year it dropped, whether or not it was a single, and what label released it. She was a goddamn savant. Raf started using her like she was a walking party trick with his friends, some of whom also started to think pop-punk was cool.

Streets of Gold started, as many shitty garage bands do, as a blink-182 cover band. They played birthday parties, then house parties, then veteran halls, then underground Miami clubs. They were signed by Stuck in the Suburbs Records in 2002 and struck out on their first supporting tour. They’ve barely been home since.

Everything changed once again for the Moreno family when Val took a step back. She loved the band, loved the music, even loved touring, but there was a piece of her that was more like her parents than she ever realized or wanted to admit. She craved learning and missed academia after she finished her GED. She secretly applied to the University of Miami and sought out her replacement for the band, gearing up for a fight.

Raf lost it, at first. They had the worst knock-down, drag-out sibling fight of their entire lives. It ended in tears with Raf holding Val against his chest as they sobbed. They started training her replacement Naveen the next day.

Among Val’s fondest memories of drumming in Streets of Gold are the two years she spent with the band on Warped Tour. Warped was every scene kid’s wet dream, every garage band’s Woodstock. It was the be all, end all of pop-punk music. Warped is a fickle mistress – it makes and it breaks, it gives and it takes and it’s not for the faint of heart.

They call it rock band summer camp, and it is. It’s day after day of heat and sweat and drugs and sex and music, so much fucking music. But the showers are scarce and sleeping in a van with five guys, driving through the night to reach the next stop, it wears on you.

But it’s all about the kids. They come in droves, self-professed outcasts in girls’ skinny jeans, hair Manic Panic-ed and razored past the point of recognition, the uniform of kids without a cause. They gather like the Island of Misfit Toys for a chance at community, to throw themselves into a world they recognize, a world they’ve created for themselves. It reflects them, it accepts them, it inspires them, and Warped Tour is where it truly comes alive.

The kids wait for hours in the heat, withstand insane conditions to see their favorite bands. They go hard, they leave it all out on the fields, in the amphitheaters, screaming their lungs out as thanks for giving them somewhere to belong. It’s a chorus of angst and otherness and, somehow, hope. It’s Valentina’s favorite song. And she misses it.

Raf dropped the hint two weeks ago that there might be a chance at return for Val. Things are different now – Streets of Gold is starting and finishing the 2007 Vans Warped Tour on the main Lucky Stage, a far cry from their humble beginnings playing to a handful or a dozen curious onlookers from Hot Topic Kevin Says. They have a bus now with a shower and actual air conditioning and, holy shit, they have actual bunks.

And their merch guy Jamie, Raf told her casually, has to step away from the tour due to a family financial situation. Can’t be avoided. They’re checking their network for replacements, but, if they can’t find someone in time, could he beg her to come along? One last summer on the Warped Tour before she leaves for the UK in the fall?

Val played it cool – “I’m exhausted,” she reminded him, “After everything this year…” (And she doesn’t need to elaborate, because he knows all too well) “And I just graduated…”

But the truth is, Val found herself wondering about it. She hasn’t been on tour in three full years. She’s gotten her fixes visiting their shows, bobbing her head from side stage singing the words she still writes for the band with her brother, but it’s not the same. It’ll never be the same.

After only a few days, Val wasn’t just wondering – she was hoping. She had it wrapped around her heart now, this idea of returning to something that always brought her hope and comfort when she needed it. And like she told Raf, after the year she’s had…

She got the call four days before the first stop in Pomona. Raf needed her. She’d better start packing.

_She couldn’t wait for the summer at the Warped Tour, she remembers the first time that she saw him there._

+

“Oh, thank fucking Christ!”

Shawn rolls his eyes and throws the lurching white van into park. It scuttles to a stop.

“Shut the fuck up, dude,” Shawn mumbles, wrenching his rusty door open and stepping out onto the grass to survey the area.

Francis’s head pops up over the roof of the van wearing a disapproving glare.

“All in favor of banning Shawn from driving for the rest of the tour, say aye!” Francis crows.

A chorus of ayes fall out of the sliding doors of the 15-passenger van as they open and pour smelly 20-somethings out. Shawn sighs and plants his hands on his hips.

“I got us here an hour before we were supposed to be, I deserve credit for that,” he whines, sliding his Ray Bans up into his dark curls.

Francis looks unimpressed. “You nearly killed us all at least four times. You don’t get shit.”

“Maybe this was his strategy,” Bobby offers with an eyebrow lifted conspiratorially, “Maybe he pretends to be a shitty driver so he can get out of driving the van between stops.”

Shawn smirks. “I’ve been a shitty driver since I was 15. That’s a long con.”

“Alright, assholes, time to start unloading,” calls a voice from near the trunk. Shawn groans and licks his lips, flicking at the black enameled ring he got pierced there a couple months ago.

He ambles back to where the truck has pulled up beside their rickety van. Andrew climbs out and runs a hand through his hair. “Shawn, man, you’re fucking impossible to follow. You were doing 85 on the freeway, you know that?”

Shawn opens his mouth to defend himself when the rest of his band starts choking on laughter. He holds up his hands in surrender. “Fine, fuckers. Drive yourselves.”

Shawn turns and looks around at the Pomona Fairgrounds. He’s never seen anything more beautiful in his life. There are stages going up left and right, tents and skate ramps and those inflatable floating human-shaped things that flop around and wave at car dealerships. It’s mania, and he’s so fucking excited about it.

Warped Tour has always been the dream. It’s always been a reality just out of reach. Always a spectator, never the spectated.

He’s been nomadic for the past few years since he first picked up a guitar and started playing old The Starting Line and Jimmy Eat World covers. He’s been in at least eight different bands, all of which showed promise at the start and ended in various states of the decay of teenage boredom. No one wanted to go the distance with him, not until he met Francis, Bobby and Seth through friends of friends of friends. Then suddenly, Warped Tour wasn’t just within reaching distance, it was fucking happening.

Shawn’s a sentimental sap so he’s standing on the hill overlooking the manifestation of his dreams. Seth, the band’s fan-anointed “quiet one,” claps a hand on his shoulder.

“We fuckin’ made it, man,” he reminds Shawn breathlessly. Shawn chokes on an emotional inhale and nods.

They’ve gotten good at load-in now. Everyone has their assigned tasks and Andrew’s a seasoned enough tour manager to be able to wrangle them into efficiency. Or, near efficiency. They’re a little distracted today, overwhelmed by the magnitude of it all.

They’re quieter, too. They’ve felt big in their britches for awhile, having been invited out on tour supporting bands like Valencia, My American Heart and All Time Low. But this is a new ballgame. They’re very much little fish in a giant fucking pond, a very intimidating pond.

They stare at the buses of pop-punk legends as they wade past with amps and instruments and risers in hand, feeling like it’s the first day of kindergarten and the eighth graders are all settled in and looking cooler than anyone ever has ever. Shawn actually, embarrassingly enough, nods in reverence at Streets of Gold’s bus. He’s glad none of his band and crew notice and razz him for it.

Being new and not a huge crowd draw, they’re one of the first bands of the day on their designated Smartpunk stage. Shawn doesn’t so much mind playing Smartpunk. It’s a small stage but plenty of amazing bands have gotten started there. He’s just happy to be on the tour. And if they impress and end up drawing in some attention and wind up spending a couple of tour dates on Hurley.com or even, dare he dream it, the Hurley stage, he’ll be a happy kid.

But at 19, with his best friends at his side and their sophomore album release date coming up in only a month, Shawn feels like he’s at the edge of the world looking at the start of something he can’t quite make out yet, but it feels so fucking good.

+

Val is already sweating her balls off, no surprise there.

She’s had some merch girl experience, naturally, having been with the band since its infancy, a time where everyone wears a lot of hats. But now that Streets is a bona fide Warped Tour Band, a destination, a band people make the trip to see, it’s a new ballgame.

She unloads box after box of shirts, hats, hoodies, wristbands, CDs, booty shorts, whatever else they can hawk at an upcharge. Raf and Naveen eagerly help her and she suspects they’re trying to play nice because they know she didn’t have to come on tour and help them. Val doesn’t want to get used to it – in about a week, they’ll be a lot less eager to haul boxes around and will make themselves scarce.

As she’s setting up the tent above the table, she looks around with a smile.

Returning to Warped feels a little like coming home. It’s a dry, hot, smelly home with sun-scorched grass underfoot and an overabundance of men in women’s jeans but there’s just something about it—

“BABYYYYYY!” cries a voice that belongs to a woman who soon careens straight into Val’s side.

“Oh my fucking god!” Val squeals, throwing her arms around the violet haired cling on. She bounces back and forth as they laugh and babble incoherently.

Finally, she pulls away and Val holds her by the shoulders to look at her.

“Why, Bea Easton, look at you!” Val giggles.

Bea, all four-foot-eleven inches of her, strikes a pose complete with duck face and popped hips in her low-slung Bullhead skinnies. She breaks into a laugh, shaking her head.

“Miss me, Moreno?”

“So much that I’m back on tour with these hooligans again,” Val sighs, angling her head at her bus where her tourmates are arguing over the Xbox.

Bea chuckles. “Thank god. It was getting dull in the scene without you.”

Val shoots her a suspiciously amused glance. Bea makes an exasperated noise, throwing her hands up.

“Well the scene is never fucking dull, that’s kind of the point, but I missed you, kid! You’re not so easily replaced, you know.”

Val scrunches her face and pulls Bea into a proper hug, tucking her face into her freshly-dyed hair and rubbing her back. “Ditto, dude. College was cool but… I couldn’t really resist one last shot at all this.”

Bea stands back and loops her arm around Val’s waist as they observe. After a moment, Bea pinches Val’s side gently.

“Hey, how are you?”

Val’s body tightens instinctively. She knows Bea feels it. Bea only asked a question everyone’s been asking her for months. And Val’s still shit at pretending it doesn’t bug the fuck out of her.

“I’m fine. Really. I went to the doctor recently and he did some tests and confirmed that I’m human and not a big walking china doll.”

Bea’s bleached eyebrows lift as she smirks. “Point taken. Have you started checking out the talent, then?”

Val scoffs. “You and your locker room talk.”

“This is what equality looks like, bitch. But seriously, tell me that’s not half the reason you’re here. A little palette cleanser.”

Val runs her tongue across her lower lip. Bea knows her oh so well.

She elbows Bea gently. “Stop that, I already have a reputation,” she hisses teasingly.

“Mmm, that’s right,” Bea replies, playing along, “The biggest slut in the scene is back on Warped Tour. Better start lining up for a taste.”

Val laughs heartily, shaking her head. “I swear to god, Bea, you—”

She stops dead in her sentence, words have failed her. Her brain fritzes out. She stares straight ahead, exhales in a loud puff. Bea notices and turns to look at what, or who, Val has spotted.

He’s tall. That’s probably the first thing anybody ever notices about him. He’s really fucking tall. He’s also not as scrawny as the rest of the twiggy white boys that populate the scene these days. He’s built – broad in the shoulders and the thighs. He’s wearing the uniform black skinnies, though, so he’s probably a band member rather than a volunteer. And he’s got the presence, somehow, of a frontman. Maybe it’s because Val’s pretty well versed in scene guys, but she can just tell he’s a lead singer.

His dark curls are tucked under a backwards Blue Jays hat and his eyes are unreadable under black Wayfarers. His facial structure is sinfully architected, marred only by the black lip ring that’s pierced through his full lower lip.

His hands are tucked in the pockets of his impossibly tight jeans as he cruises easily on a skateboard through hordes of bands and crew prepping for the day. He seems unbothered by the hard work going on around him, content to observe and take it all in. It gives him an ethereal sort of glow, that he’s untouched by reality.

Val swallows like a fucking cartoon character and watches his mighty leg strike the ground, black leather high top Chucks kicking up a cloud of fairground dust as he propels himself past the tent without a glance. She feels like a ninth grader who’s caught her first glance at the senior quarterback. She sniffs. It’s been a while since she’s felt like that at all.

Bea elbows her again. “Holy damn.”

“Say it again, sister,” Val chuckles, watching the back pockets of his jeans stretch over his very fine ass as he launches himself down the sidewalk, weaving and bobbing through the crowd.

“HOLY DAMN!” Bea crows, throwing an arm around Val’s shoulders and shaking her. Val sniggers and peels her eyes away, nibbling on her pillowy lower lip.

“I’ll do some recon, find out who he is,” Bea offers, smirking. Val isn’t about to turn that down. Bea’s the most well-connected merch girl on the tour, being as seasoned as she is, having toured with New Found Glory since ’97. She nods her thanks and waves goodbye as Bea rushes off to check on the status of her own merch tent.

Val turns back to her table, fumbling through price tags and pushpins. Her mind is elsewhere. Specifically, it’s somewhere in the back pocket of that skateboarding guy. She can smell trouble on him from here.

She doesn’t mind. She could use a little trouble.

_Boys, raise your glasses/Girls, shake those, go, go, go/We’re the party, you’re the people/Let’s make this night a classic_


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Language, a lot of tongue

Valentina forgets, just briefly, why the fuck she agreed to this around the time she unloads the 30th box from the truck.

And then the gates open.

Val’s never been to Disney World despite the fact that she and her family have lived in Florida all her life. Her parents never thought of it as a suitable vacation or activity for their children’s growing minds. But she imagines this is what it looks like, feels like when the gates of the Magic Kingdom open in the morning.

She’s watching from afar when they start letting people in. Swarms of teens and young adults with multicolored hair and vibrant graphic tees pour in searching out solace and togetherness. They’ll find it here, she’s sure. She always did.

The first bands were on at 11:30am. She’s camped out at her now fully functional merch tent and the initial door opening rush has ceased. She’s officially back in the saddle, and officially exhausted.

Her feet are propped up on the table and her sunglasses are drawn low down her nose as she surveys the area and tells herself she’s not looking for that guy, the one she saw during load-in. The one with the legs.

A hand clamps down over her eyes and her instincts tell her to drop her feet and squeal. A low rumbling laugh falls over her shoulder. Her racing heart settles.

“Alex, you’re a prick.”

And there he is. All 6’1”, 130 pounds of him. Alex Gaskarth, lead singer of All Time Low, her second favorite goofball.

She looks over her shoulder at him and grins despite her grating words. He takes his cue to step around the table and present himself to her. He’s wearing a smirk and a douchey white snapback. He lifts his thick dark eyebrows.

“But I’m your prick,” he reminds her. She shakes her head and stands. He holds out his long, gangly arms for her to wrap herself up in.

She sways them back and forth and lands a friendly kiss on his cheek. “I can’t believe it took you this long to come visit. I half expected the bus would run over you when we pulled in here this morning.”

“Following you around the venue like a puppy is so 2005,” he chuckles, alluding to the not-so-secret crush he harbored pretty famously on her during her last fall tour with Streets. Despite the potential for awkwardness, Alex and Val remained friends. She even wrote with him sometimes when he was in the Miami area.

She claps him on the back and releases him. “What time are you on? Hurley.com, right?”

He grins proudly, rocking back on his heels. “Yeah, can you believe it? Fuckin’ Hurley.com! We’re on at 4 today.”

She bobs her head. “That’s a good slot. Long enough after lunch that people will be looking around for a set to catch.”

“Exactly. Rian’s out with the posterboard now walking the line.”

Val tossed her head back with a laugh. Walking the line was a time-honored tradition at Warped Tour for smaller bands. They designate members to walk around the grounds with a posterboard announcing their stage and set time. It’s a duty no one particularly likes because it’s hot and a little humiliating but the ATL boys always did it with gusto. Val’s pretty sure it had more to do with meeting girls than with the pride of convincing potential fans to come catch their set.

“I don’t miss that shit,” she admits.

He shoots her a look. “You must miss the rest of it, though. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

“Psychoanalyzing me already, Gaskarth? Buy me a drink first.”

She gently backs him off with her sharp wit. The truth is, Alex knows more about her than she’d probably care to realize. He’s perceptive as hell, which makes him an amazing songwriter. But here, at the merch table, where she can feel the heavily lined eyes of 17-year-olds staring at them curiously, she doesn’t much feel like getting into her personal life. Especially since she knows he has the ear of Raf.

“I will definitely buy you a drink at the barbecue tonight!” he offers with a glint in his eye.

“The booze is free at the barbecue.”

“That’s perfect, free drinks are my favorite kind to buy. I gotta bounce, I’ll see you tonight, kid.”

He bumps her fist with his and jogs off, holding the saggy ass of his skinny jeans up with one hand as he waves at a giggling group of fans.

When the smell of his Axe body spray and sweat fades, the watchful eyes remain. Val is used to them, had gotten good at ignoring them, but she’s a little out of practice.

They feel sharper than she remembers. She blinks hard, feeling the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She swallows uncomfortably and reaches for a water bottle.

Despite the 50/50 male to female ratio of attendance at Warped Tour and the general understanding that women are more a part of the scene than ever before, female band members, especially female drummers, are not widely accepted. She was bothered by it for a time, unsure how anyone could mistake her drive to write and make music as a way for her to sleep with band and crew. She kept everyone at arm’s length, desperate to keep from gaining a reputation. But it never mattered. She got one anyway.

Val shoots a glance at the gaggle of teen girls in Delia’s jeans and Paramore t-shirts. They pretend to be doing anything but gossiping about her. She turns her attention back to her chipping navy nail polish and smiles. Some things never change.

+

Shawn pulls the fabric of his t-shirt from where it clings to his abs and pulls a face.

“I’m fuckin’ drenched,” he mumbles. Seth nods, squinting against the sun. They’ve just come off their first set playing to about seven people from the Smartpunk stage.

“California is hot,” Francis whines. Shawn beans him with a plastic water bottle. Francis grabs it out of the dust and throws it back, but it goes wide when he gets distracted by something behind Shawn.

Shawn turns his head to look. Through the straggling crowd, he sees Raf and Val Moreno at the Streets of Gold merch tent looking like the casual rock gods they are. Shawn’s smile is shy and cornered on either side by a blush.

“Should we go say hi?” murmurs Vince, their guitar and drum tech.

Shawn winces. “Well we shouldn’t stand here and strategize about it, that’s fucking weird.”

But they do stand there for another minute or two, quietly hoping Raf will spot them and wave them over so they feel like the kids getting invited to sit at the cool lunch table. But he’s embroiled in what looks like a heated discussion with his sister, so they slouch off for a break under the merch tent with Dan and his battery operated fans.

Shawn’s a little relieved. He’s not sure he can be around either Moreno twin without making an ass of himself. He knows Raf, yes, they’ve been first openers on more recent Streets shows when they’ve come through Toronto, but that doesn’t make him any less of a total fucking dweeb around him, given how long he’s been a Streets fan. And Val, Val he’s never met and probably never should. Shawn’s not bad around girls but he has a funny feeling he’d go full idiot motor-mouth if he got to look deep into the soulful brown eyes of Valentina Moreno. Maybe he can go the whole summer without talking to her? Is that possible?

He contemplates the likelihood under the tent with his eyes closed. He hears some female giggling and looks up. There are about six 14-year-old girls staring at them shyly.

“Hey, Shawn!” one of them greets, shoved forward by the others to be their mouthpiece despite the shakiness in her voice.

Shawn beams and stands, looming over them. “Hey, guys! Did you catch the set earlier?”

The leader of the group looks annoyed. “No, only Carly did,” she gestures to a petite Latina girl behind her who looks horrified that Shawn Mendes knows her name now, “We were stuck at soccer camp until noon and couldn’t get here.”

Shawn ducks slightly to seem less large and intimidating. He looks around a girl’s pink hair to catch Carly’s eye. “Did you have fun?”

Carly blinks and clears her throat. Her friends look awe-struck. “Yes. Yeah, you guys were great.”

Shawn bobs his head. “Thank you. You guys wanna take a picture?”

They agree and hand him a little pink Razr. They gather around him as he squats partially to fit them all in the frame. He turns the phone around and expertly positions it to snap the photo. With hugs and a couple purchased t-shirts later, they’re off to bask in the glow.

“Shawn Mendes: setting teenage loins on fire since 1988.”

Shawn smirks at Francis. “Are you jealous about the 14-year-olds, Frank? Do we need to have a talk?”

The band guffaws. Francis’s face goes flat. “Fuck off, you know I love older women.”

“I do,” Shawn chuckles, shaking his head.

“This year is the year I marry Hayley Williams,” Francis reminds them all. Shawn tips his head back and lets his eyes shut again, resting up before the first barbecue of the tour.

“This is the year I fuck Bigfoot,” Seth chirps.

It’s the last thing Shawn remembers hearing before he drifts off in a nice post-show nap.

+

Val can’t really explains the bubble of nerves she feels as she sits in the front lounge of the Streets bus with her make up bag. She’s freshly showered and applying a cat eye when Raf steps out of the bunk area with a resigned smile.

“You look pretty,” he comments half-heartedly.

“Don’t sound so bummed about it,” she chuckles, sparing him a glance as she raises her eyeliner wand with a steady hand.

“I’m not. Sorry. I’m just… I’m sorry about earlier. I was being weird,” Raf mumbles, collapsing into the booth seat across the table from her.

Val gamely lowers her hand to focus on him. She sweeps a wave of almost too shiny stick-straight hair over her shoulder and regards him carefully. “It’s ok.”

“It’s not. It’s not your shit. And I always make it your shit,” he sighs.

Val bites into her lower lip, flipping through her lip gloss options. After a moment, she looks up at him. “It’s just… it’s been a couple years, Raf, I don’t know what to do anymore.”

Raf swallows and Val feels his embarrassment in her gut like it’s hers. She winces.

“I don’t know why I still can’t be around her. I feel like such a fucking kid,” he rasps. He nervously adjusts the Taking Back Sunday snapback on his dark curls and huffs.

“It’s not like there’s a rule. You and Bea, it was fuckin’ complicated. And it was so hot and cold and on and off for a long time. You’re not a robot, you can’t turn it off because you want to. And even if she pretends she can, she can’t.”

He looks up. “Did she say something to you?”

“Jesus Christ, Raf, stop. I’m talking to you now as your sister, not as Bea’s friend. I cannot be your informant or your go-between. We’re not doing that again.”

Raf held up his hands. “Right. Yes. I’m sorry. Old habits. Cool. We’re good.”

Raf stands and heads for the door without another word. Val opens her mouth to stop him but his long legs carry him faster than her brain can come up with something comforting to say. She wrinkles her nose and pouts at the magnifying mirror.

With any luck, she’d get her hands on enough Jack Daniels not to be worrying about keeping 15 yards between her brother and his sometimes-girlfriend. But if she wants any booze at all, she’d better leave now.

She follows stragglers from the bus grounds to where they’ve set up the grills and stereos. There’s something romantic about wading through trampled grass, following bonfire smoke and pop-punk to get to where she wants to be. And when she arrives, she’s welcomed with open arms and open containers of booze.

The New Found Glory guys and Bea pounce on her first, doling out hugs and swigs of gin. Val feels her heart pounding against Ryan Key of Yellowcard’s chest as she hugs him because she’ll never be fully over that little crush. She flips off the Streets band and crew as they holler at her from a stack of strategically placed hay bales. They’re surrounded by a younger band she doesn’t recognize.

She gathers a plate of food, high fives Kevin Lyman and snags a beer before she strolls over to join her family. As she stands over them, she sees a familiar face.

“Val, these are the Forefront guys. Guys, this is my sister Val,” Raf introduces, pointing out Francis, Bobby, Seth, Vince, Carter and Shawn.

Val slides on a smooth grin and plops down next to Shawn, Blue Jays skateboarding boy from this morning. Because when life hands you lemons.

“Hi,” she murmurs, fluttering her eyelashes at him when his eyes go wide. He chokes slightly on a bite of hot dog and mumbles “hi” through a mouthful of bread.

She’s undeterred. From this close, she can see the little freckles on the base of his neck and the way his sideburns are curly like the rest of his hair. It’s refreshing – curls aren’t a thing in the scene. It makes him stand out. That and the foot of height he has on anyone that comes near him.

She’s heard of Forefront from Raf. She knows some of their music. They opened a few shows after her tenure as Streets’ drummer, so her familiarity is limited. She likes his voice, though. It’s the kind of voice that makes you want to close your eyes and live in it for a while, let it take you somewhere. She has half a mind to close her eyes and just listen to him talk now.

But he’s gone quiet. She wonders if maybe she threw him off by planting right next to him. Val knows as both a confident woman and a female scene drummer she can be an intimidating presence. She doesn’t so much mind that, but it does throw off her game sometimes.

She drinks a little harder. He does the same. As he does, his body, previously turned away and closed off from her, opens up. He starts looking over at her when she laughs at something Francis said or when she makes her sly cracks that have the whole group roaring. Just once or twice she catches him staring just a little too long. If their faces weren’t bronzed out by the light of the fire, she’d catch his heavy blush.

Some of the group breaks off until it’s Francis, Shawn, Val and Naveen sitting around listening to Francis blabber over blink-182’s Take Off Your Pants And Jacket in the background. Shawn and Val are both picking at straw from a hay bale when the song changes to First Date.

Their heads shoot up like meercats. Val looks at Shawn with a grin. He goes noticeably pink at noticing the same song she has.

“I love Take Off Your Pants,” she confesses, “It was like, a turning point album for me.”

Shawn nods eagerly, tossing his straw aside and licking his lips. She watches the black ring bob distractingly. “Totally. God, Stay Together For the Kids? So fucking good.”

“Oh my god, legendary,” she agrees, pressing her lips into a gentle smile.

He gets his first good look at her for the night. He’s been trying to keep his eyes down, trying not to be weird, but she’s a little magnetic.

He notices her long, rounded fingernails and wonders if she wore them that long when she was still drumming. He wonders if she straightens her dark hair or if it’s that shiny all on its own. He looks at the fullness of her lips and imagines what flavor her lipgloss is. He stops himself when he realizes he’s thinking about how her flared hips would feel under his hands when she’s dancing to Beverly Hills by Weezer.

Now, though, since they’re talking, he has invitation to look at her. She’s a classic kind of beauty with a soft round face, deep, dark eyes and cupid’s bow-shaped lips. She’s kinda tall for a girl at 5’8” but still petite enough to make you wonder how she hits those drums so hard. Or, used to.

She’s beautiful. She’s been beautiful for years. He knows because he’s been a Streets fan since he saw them by happenstance at a little club in Toronto when he was a moody 14-year-old. They had only just gotten signed and were opening for Bayside at the time. He remembers quirking his eyebrows when she took the stage, that little hint of a smirk on her face, that look of “just you watch.”

She plays hard. She’s a damn good drummer. Naveen is a decent replacement, but Val Moreno was special. She is special. And she’s pulling on his hand.

“C’mon, Mendes, I need a refill,” she announces, tugging on him as she turns toward the tables of booze. His eyes fall to the snug back pockets of her hiphuggers. He licks his lips again and follows willingly.

“What can I make you?” he offers gallantly, holding his arms out to the bottles of booze.

Val’s eyebrows lift as she leans against a lamppost. “What is this, “Cocktail?””

Shawn grins at the reference and ducks his head. “I’m a bartender when we’re not on tour. Try me.”

This time Val’s the one licking her lips at the implication. Trying him doesn’t sound like a bad way to spend time.

“Whiskey sour,” she requests with a nod. He beams at the proffered challenge and reaches for a fresh solo cup, expertly whipping up her drink the way he makes them at The Copper Bar back home in Toronto.

He hands it to her with a raised eyebrow. She takes a sip, watching him as he watches her. She approves.

“That’s good. You know your way around a bottle.”

“I do what I can,” he says without a hint of false modesty. Her heart smacks against her ribs. She fights to soothe it as he leads her not back toward their friends but around the perimeter of the barbecue.

“So. First day. You shitting yourself yet?” she asks.

Shawn laughs and adjusts the backwards cap on his head nervously. She blinks and thinks of Raf for a flash of a second.

“Today was rough,” he admits, “We’ve been opening for some cool bands so we’ve had a lot of kids to play for recently. When they’re not trapped in front of you, when they can just walk past your stage to go catch Pennywise on main, I mean yeah, it’s disheartening.”

Val knows the feeling well but gets the sense the sage older sister vibe wouldn’t be appropriate here given how not subtly he’s brushing their hands together as they walk.

“I actually heard people talking about your set today,” she says. He lights up. She brightens up right with him.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Some girls at my table said you were playing a keyboard. They acted like they’d never seen one before.”

Shawn shrugs. “I like the keyboard. Feels a little elevated sometimes. It’s different.”

Val slugs back another sip of whiskey and notices how light she feels. She hopes if she starts to float away he’ll catch her.

They make another turn around the perimeter and their cups are empty by the time they get there so they refill. By the time they come back again, Shawn is stumbling lazily, holding Val’s hand high as she twirls toward the table to grab a beer. She’s singing along, and not at all badly, to Pardon Me by Weezer. He watches her with a close-mouthed smile and sparkling eyes and he’s half in love and the other half is three sheets to the wind.

When they reach the table, she drops his hand and before he can feel dejected, she hands him a beer and drags him away from the rabble and the music and the cloud of weed and cheap booze toward the buses. It’s not subtle, it’s public, people are definitely taking note of who’s skulking off with who, and Val seems to pay it no mind. Shawn swings his head back to look at what they’re leaving. He avoids Raf’s watchful gaze and instead stares at Francis who looks a little impressed and a little fucking flabbergasted.

“Do you like touring, Shawn?” she asks, continuing to drag him by the hand like she knows exactly where they’re going. He’s pretty sure she doesn’t.

“I love touring,” he says honestly, hiccupping over the last word. She giggles and turns, walking backwards up the hill with a beer in one hand and his hand in the other. He wants to memorize this moment.

Val Moreno isn’t just looking at him. She doesn’t just know his name. She’s dragging him up a hill to god knows where with beers and it occurs to him there’s no bus call tonight because they’re only driving to Ventura in the morning. What the fuck is going on.

She’s plopping into cross-legged position on a patch of mud. He notices that she doesn’t seem to do much very gracefully, other than hit the drums. He lowers next to her and she releases his hand.

“I like touring sometimes. Other times it makes me… crazy,” she confides, narrowing her eyes at the fairgrounds below being broken down by venue staff. She blinks slowly. He watches her wet her lips and sip her beer.

“It can be a lot,” he agrees softly, unsure of how to answer. He finds himself wanting to be helpful to her in some way, in whatever way she might need.

He gets like this around girls sometimes. He wants to be whatever they want him to be.

She ignores his confused glance and drops her cryptic topic. Instead, she stares out at the floodlights painting the grounds pale colors against the charcoal southern California sky.

“Do you miss drumming?” he whispers.

She doesn’t blink, doesn’t hesitate. “Every day.”

He’s quiet for another minute. “Why did you stop?”

She looks at him warmly. He feels it down to his toes. She puts her beer down and turns to face him, shuffling between his bent knees. She plants her manicured hands on the tears in his black jeans and looks him over carefully. He feels himself go a little hard against his thigh under her study.

“Val?” he whispers.

“Hmm?” she hums, looking up from his impressive arms to his even more impressive face.

“You gonna kiss me?” he croaks, his mouth going dry.

Valentina grins wide. “You’re goddamn right I am.”

She doesn’t so much kiss him as maul him. She launches into his body, securing her hands by his where they’re planted behind him to hold them up. She plunders his lips, sucking his lower lip into her mouth, teasing the piercing to make him moan. She licks hungrily into his mouth. He pushes off his hands to pull himself up right and hold her tight against him, wanting to feel her chest against his, see if their hearts were pounding in time, if they were as in synch as their lips.

She sinks her fingers into his hair and tugs. His body tightens along with his grip on her. He whimpers loud into her mouth, sucking gently at her tongue. She cards her fingers through his hair like she’s desperate for something but he’s not sure what it could be because he’s given her everything he has in this kiss. He bites down on her lower lip when she makes to pull away to his neck.

She tastes like whiskey and beer and her hair is impossibly softer than it looks as he plays with the ends, the fingers of his other hand flirting with the hem of her shirt. She wiggles in his arms until his fingertips nudge underneath. His hands wander up over the perfect caramel skin of her back, over the band of her lacy bra, brushing the downy hairs on the nape of her neck. He thinks about lifting her arms and pulling off her tee but he resists, dropping a hand down to slide into her back pocket instead.

She gasps a little into his mouth at his teasing squeeze. She nips at his lips playfully, giggling into the kiss in a way she hasn’t with anyone in a long time. She knows she’s drunk, they both are, but this feels like its own intoxication.

She pulls back slightly to breathe, tucking her hair behind her ears. Shawn’s lips are swollen and his pupils are blown out. She flicks gently at his bottom lip with her tongue, enjoying the way his breathing hitches whenever she uses her tongue on him. She pecks at his lips, wriggling back into his hand as he experimentally massages her ass through her skinny jeans.

“You’re so fucking hot,” he hisses, grunting when she drops her lips to the freckles she noticed on his neck earlier.

Val smiles against the gently tanned skin, sinking her teeth in to hear him yelp.

“Oh, fucking Christ,” he mutters, gathering her in closer, unwilling to move his hands from her ass.

“Wanna leave a mark,” she murmurs, tonguing his throat. He nods without hesitation.

“Please, fuck, yes,” he rasps, already picturing how it’ll look in the mirror tomorrow morning, how long it might last on his sensitive skin.

Val nibbles and sucks like she’s got a formula in place and maybe she does but he definitely doesn’t care. It feels fucking good. It feels even better, somehow, when she leans back to survey her work and smiles. She likes claiming him.

“So sexy, Shawn,” she whispers into his lips through another sloppy, open-mouthed kiss. He groans in agreement. Her teeth bump up against his piercing and she pulls back to lick at it playfully.

“This is sexy, too,” she comments, pecking at the corner of his mouth, feeling the enamel dig into her lip.

“Yeah?” he pants, blinking his eyes open to see her looking at him with a Cheshire cat smile and hooded lids. He licks the taste of her off his lower lip.

“I like piercings,” she tells him, tracing the sharp line of his jaw with her finger. It quivers under her touch. He keeps his eyes level with hers.

“What… what else do you like?” he nearly gasps. Her eyebrows lift.

“You wanna know what I like, Shawny?”

The low tremor of his voice has him nodding eagerly. He squeezes her ass again for emphasis. “Yeah.”

“I like your hands on my ass. And I like your tongue in my mouth,” she replies smoothly, hooking her fingers back into his curls and tilting his head to stroke her tongue against his.

He moans loud, obscenely, and tips back into the dirt with her on top of him. Her weight is comforting somehow, and the motion kicks up a breeze through her hair, sending a distinctly citrusy scent at him to overwhelm him further.

He hears himself speaking but isn’t sure why he feels the need to, especially since he’s literally talking into her mouth. “You smell good.”

She giggles and their teeth clash and Shawn feels a shiver rip up his back. It’s so casually intimate, feels couple-y and sweet, it makes Shawn a little dizzy. He grunts and tries not to rut into her like a teenager since she’s just lying on top of him and not making any moves to grind against him or take his clothes off. Which he’s fine with, he can totally handle himself. The raging hard-on in his cage-like jeans tells him otherwise, but fuck it. When’s he going to have this chance again?

Val likes feeling him solid and warm underneath her, between her and the briny-smelling dirt. She’s just interested in kissing him, in exploring the way their lips fit together and the noises he makes when she flicks at the tip of his tongue or scratches at the curls on the back of his neck. He’s not pushing her either, which is nice. He’s not yanking at her shirt or shoving his hands down her pants. He’s making her feel like he’ll take what he can get from her when she offers it. That’s kinda nice.

The flood lights go out below them. The party is over. The venue is broken down. They both jerk upright when the world around them goes absolutely dark.

Val pants. Shawn sits up with her between his knees. He groans.

“How are we going to get back? We can’t see anything.”

Val winces. “Yeah, bad planning,” She hops up and takes his hand, yanking him to his feet, “C’mon, baby steps.”

They do get back down the hill to where the buses are. It’s not easy, and they both fall a couple times, and by the time they reach the bottom they’re both certainly more sober. He walks her to her bus and swings her hand playfully, feeling like a kid dropping his date off and wondering who’s watching them from the windows as he kisses her goodnight. She gives him one last little peck on his lip ring before sending him away and crawling into her bunk.


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Language, underage drinking, Merriment ™

Val woke up with a boy on her mind.

She bathes in the feeling of it, the comfort it brings her. She has a crush. After the year she’s had, she wasn’t sure she’d be allowed another. It feels like a little gift.

A little gift in a big, perfect, 6’2” package.

Speaking of package…

Val sinks her orthodontist-perfected front teeth into her bottom lip to tamp down her filthy smile. She closes her eyes and imagines the way he felt underneath her last night when they were rolling around in the dirt. His whole body was hard, and not in the way she’s used to. He clearly takes excellent care of himself, which is always sexy. He was all firm muscle wrapped in strong tendons and ligaments under a curtain of surprisingly soft skin. And, when she got a hand up under his shirt, moaning into his open mouth as she traced the defined lines of his abs, she found a nice dusting of chest hair that got her even a little wetter than she already was.

So yeah, he was hard in more ways than one. And Val can’t stop thinking about it.

She fell asleep in Pomona after a romp with her bounding bunny and woke up in Ventura for another round. It didn’t even occur to her until after her third orgasm of the past 24 hours that this is the first time she’s gotten a full eight hours of sleep in… oh, no, she refuses to think about how long it’s been.

What she’d like to stop thinking about, what she shouldn’t really be so impressed by, is how willing he was to stay put under her and let her explore him, drifting his hands over her body as he liked without demanding, without pushing any limits. I mean, really, how low are her standards that she’s actually charmed by respect and consent? That thinking about it makes her blush?

Well, Val cut her teeth on the boys of Warped Tour. So. Those standards? They’re pretty fuckin’ low.

What a nice thing, though, to have a crush. A nice little summer crush. A boy that makes her heart flutter when he skates by, a face to watch in a crowd when she’s had a few and is simmering for him under the cool June moon. A gift, indeed.

She’s pondering possibilities of flirtation, of stolen kisses, of pink cheeks and bashful glances when her bunk curtain flies open and something crawls inside.

Bea burrows her face into Val’s neck as Val wordlessly scooches further into the bunk to make room. Not that they need much. Bea is the size of a peapod.

“Honey bunch,” Bea greets, nuzzling Val’s hair which still smells faintly of bonfire smoke. It’s so signature Warped, it makes Bea grin.

After a moment of comfortable silence, Bea looks up at Val in wonder. “Did you sleep through the night?”

Val wears a proud smirk and tips an eyebrow at her. “I did.”

“Shit, that’s new. The Mendes kid must’ve really worn you out,” Bea yawns, feigning casual. Val chuckles, bouncing Bea against her side.

“Mmmm, what a man what a man what a man…” Val begins.

“What a mighty good mannnnnn,” Bea finishes, laughing.

The girls giggle together until Bea stops, kicking her bare foot at something brushing against it from outside Val’s bunk curtain.

“Guys, it’s Naveen,” a voice calls, making them both smile and settle, “Val, could you… I mean, I’m sorry, I know it’s early…”

Val makes a pitiful face and drags the curtain back, squinting at her friend.

“Naveen, only you could make it sound like you’re inconveniencing me by asking me to do my job. Bless your heart. I’ll be right out.”

Naveen sheepishly stumbles away probably to start unloading Val’s boxes, which she should be doing herself. She just wanted to… bask a little longer.

“No, so really, how was it?” Bea prompts.

Val shrugs. “We made out for almost an hour. I bet my lips are still swollen. It was… in a word, delicious.”

Bea groans and rolls out of the bunk, landing on her feet like a cat somehow. She shoots Val a displeased look. “Seriously? No fucking? You had a body like that at your disposal and you didn’t let him fuck you?”

Val crawls out behind Bea in Soffe shorts and a My Chem shirt that once belonged to an ex-fling. Her joints creak slightly. Maybe she’s getting too old for this touring junk after all.

“I was craving kisses. You ever get that? Where the only thing that will satisfy you is kissing? I’m talking about good, long, hot, full body kisses. The kind that swallow you up and never seem to spit you back out again,” Val muses, leaning back against the wall rattling with the overworked AC unit.

Bea stares at her, deadpan. “I only crave dick.”

Val sighs and nods, seeing her point. She shoos her friend off the bus to change and reluctantly greet the day.

And reluctant she is because it’s 100 in the shade on the second day of Warped in Ventura, California and Jesus Christ, how do people do this for a whole summer? How did she do this living in a van? She’s gone soft. Throughout the morning, she closes her eyes and thinks of England. She imagines sprinkling rain, warm Scottish wool sweaters, mugs of builders tea by the fire in student housing.

Those thoughts don’t make her any cooler though. Neither do the periodical rushes of teenagers flooding her tent to throw their babysitting money at her in exchange for American Apparel tees and hoodies.

Val isn’t Bea, but she’s a damn good merch girl. She stays cool under pressure, she’s well organized, well prepared and knows when to call for back up. Which is why, when it’s 1pm and her line is 20 deep at least and the girl in front of her is insisting she handed Val 20 ones for that beanie hat and Val must’ve just dropped one, she’s never been happier to see her stupid brother.

Raf swings out to greet his minions like he’s Freddy fuckin’ Mercury, doling out cheek kisses and hugs and Sharpied autographs on various body parts. It gives Val a second to breathe, to regroup, to take care of a few straggling merchgoers before his work is done and he can turn back to her triumphantly like a hero or some shit.

She slumps into her chair and makes a face. He imitates it back flawlessly.

“Thanks, or something,” she sighs, tilting her nose up in the air. He falls into the chair next to her, sweaty from their set.

“How’s it been this morning?” he hums, picking at the fraying holes in his jeans. Raf likes to think of himself as old school – he doesn’t buy holey jeans. He buys jeans and lets them get holey by sheer force of rockstar will.

“Fine. It was nice this morning; I started a sing-a-long with the girls in line who knew every word to Yellow Pages.”

Raf looks impressed. Yellow Pages was an unreleased demo, one of the first solo songs Raf ever wrote. Only the Youtubiest Youtubers have hunted it down. They can both respect that hustle.

They’re quiet for a moment, enjoying the lull, when Raf perks up.

“H-hey, look who it is,” he chuckles, nodding across from them to an extraordinarily tall figure behind the Bayside merch tent looking sweaty and a little lost. Val winces.

“Raf, come on—”

“HEY! SHAWN!” Raf barks, holding up one long dark arm to wave him down. Val groans low out of her nose but shows no indication on her face.

Shawn flails for a second as he spins, not terribly graceful on those big feet of his. He spots where he’s needed and goes white as a sheet. Val smacks her lips.

“You know, he probably thinks you’re going to try to fight him for my honor.”

Raf keeps a friendly, welcoming gaze on Shawn, waving more insistently, “That ship has long since sailed. SHAWN!”

Val holds her head high as Shawn walks over, a little slower than what’s normal, looking extremely hesitant. Raf is eating it the fuck up.

“Hey, buddy, how was your first barbecue?” Raf laughs, feigning ignorance.

Val lifts an eyebrow. Shawn’s eyes snap to hers in a panic.

“Uhm, fine—good, yeah, it was good. Great, even.”

“Great!” Raf repeats, too much vigor in his voice. It’s giving Val a headache, “Great, that’s so great. I’m so glad you enjoyed yourself.”

Shawn nods solemnly, eyes wide, waiting to be scolded by one of the Moreno twins. Val sighs.

“I need to pee, come walk with me,” she insists, shooting her brother a look. Raf smirks and holds his hands up in surrender, staying at his post.

Shawn keeps up with Val’s enormous steps quite handily. He doesn’t even seem to notice how fast she walks, but it’s the first thing a lot of people notice about her.

“So… last night…” Shawn begins.

Val tilts her head, looking at him expectantly. He’s clearly waiting for her to step in and make a comment. Whenever boys start a thought like that, it’s what they want.

Maybe Val’s a little more like Raf than she realized. She likes making him squirm.

“Hm?” she prompts, nodding.

He huffs a gentle breath. “Last night was cool.”

She can’t say she’s surprised. Was she expecting song lyrics to come flooding out of his perfect, soft mouth that she knows very intimately now?

“Last night was cool,” she agrees, stepping a little closer to them as they walk back toward the port-o-potties.

“Are you… uhm, do you think you’re going to the one tonight on the beach?”

She drowns in the sweetness of it for a minute, feels like a cute boy is walking her to her locker and asking her if she’s going to the malt shop after school. She should be wearing a poodle skirt and swooning to match the look on her face right now.

“The Ventura barbecue is always one of the best of the year. What happens on the beach stays on the beach,” she teases, elbowing him playfully. He loosens up a little, chuckling.

“Cool, yeah,” Shawn says, “Maybe we can hang out again, then.”

Val tamps down a smile and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. He watches it get hooked away and watches it fall back into place against her cheek. He scrubs the back of his neck with his hand as they arrive by the maze of port-o-potties.

Not the most romantic setting, but…

Shawn suddenly tucks a hand against Val’s neck and kisses her. It’s quick, he only lingers for a split piece of a moment to suck a little at her lower lip before he pulls back. His eyes are dancing and he’s got color in his cheeks that can’t be attributed to the heat of the California morning.

“See you tonight,” he says, walking backwards for a few feet before turning and jogging off toward the Forefront van. She watches him go with an amused chuckle and a glance at the seat of his pants.

+

Val tips back and forth with her arm around Steve from New Found Glory and Bea on her other side. She’s filled to the brim with tequila, salt and lime eagerly fed to her by the NFG boys, some of her oldest scene friends.

“I don’t care what you think, I like that new Hannah Montana song,” Val yells into Steve’s ear over the boppy rhythm of “We’re At the Top Of the World” by the Juliana Theory.

Steve rolls his eyes, feigning disappointment. “You’re better than that, Moreno.”

“I most certainly am not!” she laughs, knocking her Corona against his in a lazy, drunken cheers.

It’s 9pm and it feels like the sun has only just set. It’s a little cool so close to the beach so she’s snuggled into Steve for warmth even if he’s more of a brother to her than her own brother sometimes. Her fuzzy brain reminds her to look for Shawn and the Forefront boys again because they haven’t shown up yet and she finds herself feeling a little girlishly eager.

A raucous behind them makes her turn under Steve’s arm. She feels Bea poking her arm but ignores her, smiling smoothly.

Francis has launched himself onto Shawn’s back as they stride down the hill from the vans and buses in a phalanx of men in women’s jeans. Seth is laughing with his hand on his stomach. The others are ignoring them as though it’s something that happens at this same time every day.

Shawn screams, laughs as he kneels and flips Francis over his head to slam into the ground. The barbecue goers all “oooooooh” in sympathetic pain as Francis coughs and tries to regain his breath. Shawn rolls his eyes and helps him up. As soon as Francis is on his feet, he’s leaping onto Shawn’s back again.

Val licks a drop of beer from the corner of her lips and shrugs out from under Steve’s arm, shivering a little. She stumbles past Bea’s clingy arms and “no, noooooo!”s in favor of walking straight into Shawn’s path as he resigns to his new cling-on.

“Hi,” she blurts with a grin, cocking her head at him. Shawn skids to a stop. Francis bounces against his back with a muffled groan.

“Hey,” he murmurs, tightening his grip around Francis’s knees. Francis drunkenly laughs, cheek resting against Shawn’s shoulder. Val looks over at him with a smirk.

“You boys look a little worse for wear.”

“No one came to our set,” Francis sighs.

“That’s not true,” Shawn argues.

“14 people came to our set,” Francis corrects, wrinkling his nose.

Shawn shrugs. “Yeah, that’s about right.”

“We all play to empty rooms sometimes,” she reminds them, nodding past them to the Streets boys throwing Raf into the ocean. Shawn follows her gaze and laughs.

“Can he swim?”

She shakes her head. “Not when he’s more vodka than boy.”

She looks back at Shawn and smiles. He’s a little sunburnt and doubly flushed from whatever booze they pity-drank after their meager set. He smells like a fresh shower and Val can’t help but wonder if it’s for her.

She thrusts her chin in Francis’s direction. “Ditch your sloth boy and come drink with us.”

Shawn unceremoniously drops Francis, who hangs around his neck for a second before thumping into the sand below them with a groan.

“Us?” Shawn asks.

Val nods to NFG and Bea. Shawn’s eyes go comically wide.

“Oh shit,” he breathes.

“C’mon, celebrities are just like us,” she teases, taking his big, warm hand in hers and tugging him toward her friends.

Shawn wants to protest, wants to dig his heels in and shake his head like a toddler, but he thinks after last night he’d follow this woman straight into a wildfire. He pastes on an anxious smile as she introduces him to everyone. The tiny merch girl, Bea, seems especially interested in him, elbowing Val every chance she got like a middle schooler. It makes Shawn wonder if maybe Val has been talking about him. He shivers at the idea.

Shawn and Val sit together in the sand. As the hours grow later, Shawn gets chattier, bonds with Chad and Jordan while Val watches and occasionally moves curls out of his eyes like a total girlfriend but she doesn’t care because she’s lit. A joint is passed around and everything slows down a little.

Shawn is leaning back on his hands, one of which is behind Val so they’re almost, just ever-so-casually intertwined. She leans into his ear to talk sometimes and he feels the hair on his neck stand up from her hot breath on his skin. Her fingers sneak toward his and brush against each other in the sand. Shawn’s skin prickles with need. He chews on his lower lip until Val nudges him.

“I’m ready to go,” she announces quietly. Her eyes look molten and black in the beach bonfire light. His stomach churns. He nods quickly and stands despite all the liquor in his system. He takes her hands and pulls her up with him.

She loops an arm around his waist as she makes her goodbyes. He feels awkward holding her like this, like they’re wearing a sign together that says “we’re leaving to fuck now, have a good night.” But when she slides her hand in the back pocket of his jeans, the worry is gone. He grows antsy as she waves goodbye. When he finally has her leading away from the barbecue, away from the rushing crash of the Pacific and the dull drone of Good Charlotte on the stereo, he places his lips by her ear to speak.

“Your place or mine?”

He’s a little proud of that line.

Val curls into his body and rests a hand on his stomach through his black t-shirt.

“Yours.”

+

Val blinks. It’s quiet. The bluish tint of dawn comes in through the windows.

She tries to lift her head too quickly and finds her cheek is stuck to his bare chest. She winces as her skin peels away from his. She plants her hands on either side of him to push herself up and take stock of the situation.

It’s early, but buses haven’t started leaving for the next stop in Mountain View yet. She is wearing her t-shirt and skimpy pink panties. Her jeans are pooled on the floor of the van next to her. Shawn is deeply asleep beneath her in a pair of boxer briefs. The Forefront boys have all returned to the bus and have therefore seen her in this state of being, passed out on top of their lead singer. Their tour manager Andrew is elsewhere.

Val looks down at Shawn. He looks younger, somehow, as he sleeps. She sweeps some cherubic curls off his forehead and drags a hand down his chest appreciatively. As quietly as she can, she gathers her shoes and jeans in hand and opens the sliding door to the van.

Like a thief in the night, she steals back to the dark silence of the Streets bus, crawls into her bunk and falls into a fitful sleep.


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Language, Shawn as a Pained Puppy, a challenge

Shawn wakes up hard.

This isn’t, like, new or anything. He’s 19. It doesn’t take much.

But he wakes up hard because he’s pretty sure he was dreaming about her.

He keeps his eyes shut, fighting to revel in it a little longer. He doesn’t remember the dream, just the feeling it gave him. She was so… warm. And smelled so nice. And her cunt felt so fucking good.

It takes him a good few minutes to remember that she was there when he fell asleep. She should be there, lying against his chest, smelling like citrus. But he runs his hands down his chest and realizes all of a sudden he’s a little cold.

He goes to sit up and whacks his head on the roof of the van. He whimpers and scrunches his nose, shaking out his curls. He looks around. A dense, cool blue fog surrounds the bus. It’s early morning. They’ll be leaving for Mountain View soon.

There’s no trace of her.

Shawn ducks his head shyly, though no one’s watching him. He’s in a van with half a dozen other men, but he feels startlingly alone.

He sniffs and tries to run through the facts in his hungover head. They were both really drunk. He’s actually struggling to come up with any details of their encounter. Maybe she’s embarrassed. Bus call is probably soon. Maybe she happened to wake up and left without wanting to wake him. Maybe she’s going to text him.

Shawn pulls his blanket out from under the bench and drapes it over him, trying to reconcile. He also tries to remember as much as he can muster about her. It feels a little cruel to have a memory like this, like her, taken away by cheap liquor. He swallows the dryness in his throat and slams his eyes shut, willing himself to imagine what it must’ve been like to make drunken love to Val Moreno.

+

What a fucking disaster.

Val wakes up again after 9am with tears of frustration in her eyes. She waves them off as a product of shitty sleep. She rucks her blanket up her chest and scrunches her hands in it, squeezing her eyes shut.

Flashes of the night before stomp through her mind, unwarranted, unwelcome. She heaves a sigh and sits up carefully, maneuvering out of her bunk. She wobbles, groans, and goes in search of coffee.

Greg and Tommy, Streets’ bassist and lead guitar (respectively), men she’s known since she was a teenager, watch her suspiciously as she spills out of the bunk area.

“There she is,” Greg coos, sickly sweet. She sneers.

“Fuck off.”

“You did that last night,” Tommy hums, reaching his hand out to Greg for a fist bump. She flips them both the bird and turns to the coffee maker, sweeping her hair over one shoulder as she prepares a fresh pot.

“Oh, Val,” Greg chuckles. His sincerity startles her. She looks up.

“What?”

“Your neck, dude. He mauled you.”

Val’s eyes go wide. She clamps a hand around her neck while the boys look away. She scrambles to the bathroom and throws the door open to inspect herself in the mirror.

Horror.

She expected her eyeliner would be runny and her hair would be greasy. She thought maybe she had a hickey on her neck from the way the boys looked at her.

It’s not… a hickey. It’s several hickeys. On both sides of her neck. Jesus Christ. He really did maul her.

She plants her hands on either side of the sink and slumps forward, shaking her head at her reflection. The marks portray an experience Val didn’t really have. They make it look like she was fucked well and thoroughly by someone who knew his way around.

She wasn’t.

Val licks her lips and reaches for her toothbrush. As she scrubs, she lets herself reflect.

It doesn’t actually really shock her that Shawn wasn’t any good in bed. Boys like that don’t have to be.

He’s a lead singer. Forefront might not mean much yet but they got onto Warped which means they have a good few fans, which means they have groupies. Plus, he’s tall and wildly good looking. He never had to be good to get girls to keep coming back.

Not that she knows he’s like that. She knows as well as anyone that despite her assumptions, there are plenty of front men on Warped that are secretly not very well experienced. Perhaps Shawn is one of those. That’s more forgivable to Val. That has potential. A man who’s slept around a lot and never bothered to learn… that’s another matter.

Val spits into the sink. The truth is, she doesn’t know which category Shawn falls into and she finds that… it bothers her. A piece of her she hasn’t seen in a while wants there to be a good reason he couldn’t get her off. She’s not well acquainted with this piece anymore. She shoves it off and spits again, willing herself to stop thinking about it.

Mountain View is beautiful but hot, much like the rest of California. Val roasts underneath the merch tent, handing off cheap tees to teenage girls and big burly twenty-something men who she wouldn’t want to meet in a wall of death. She’s hit a lull and is fanning herself with a folded up paper fan made of a Glamour Kills tent flyer when she cues into a conversation happening nearby.

“… and you’re talking about him like he’s some dude at school. He’s a lead singer, Cass. You’re not gonna fuck Shawn Mendes.”

Val perks up. She leans back in her lawn chair, listening to the crowing of the valley girls behind her.

“He might as well be. You know I heard from that girl Tasha on MySpace that he fucked two of her friends when they were on the Greener Pastures Tour last summer. And then Emily from The Hustler Club message board says she sent him nudes. He’s not, like, an angel. Plus, I’ve been laying ground work. This is our third day in a row coming to their set. And we totally locked eyes yesterday when he was singing “Not Your Story.””

Val sits forward as the girls’ voices fade out. She sips at her Diet Coke and nods to herself. Well that answers that.

+

Shawn has a plan.

He’s not going to go seek her out, cause that’s, like, weird. But Warped isn’t that big a tour. He can put himself in her way without too much trouble.

For one thing, the way the tents are arranged today, the Smartpunk stage is directly across from the Streets merch tent. When they go on at 3pm, he and his band will be playing to approximately 19 people and her.

But to hedge his bets, he’s been… around. Conspicuous, even.

He went and grabbed a water when she did. He was hanging around talking to the Set Your Goals guys when she walked past to get lunch. He even went to go talk to Bea in the hopes of catching her around the NFG merch tent, which he did. And that was when he saw her make a beeline for the NFG bus like it was the save point in a video game he didn’t know they were playing.

That was admittedly disheartening. Not that he was feeling great about the way things went. He had been hoping for a text or a drop in at the van or something to explain. But she really is just… avoiding him.

He kinda hates that.

He thinks about it more at the barbecue that night. He thinks about the way he sang his songs to her earlier that afternoon, staring at her, waiting for her to look up and acknowledge him. She may as well have been wearing noise cancelling headphones for all the attention she paid him. So he drinks beer and sits with his friends on old metal bleachers and thinks about Val Moreno, again wishing he had more pieces of her in his memory from their night together. He doesn’t think he’s going to get any more.

Val is by the coolers, searching on her hands and knees for a Corona buried beneath all the Bud Light. She swears she saw some. She’s padding around in the dirt when a very large pair of all black leather high top Chucks stop by her right hand. She inhales sharply. She looks up.

He looks as much like a kicked puppy as a 6’2” 19-year-old man boy can look. She winces.

“Hi, Shawn.”

“Hi, Val,” he replies. His voice is dry. He’s a little tipsy.

She tips back off her hands and brushes them off on the legs of her jeans. He reaches down, offers her a hand. With a resigned sigh, she takes it and lets him help her stand.

She regards him suspiciously and with wandering, guilty eyes. He just stares at her like he’s waiting for her to say something.

Finally, when she’s silent for a few too many seconds, he huffs. “I didn’t—I didn’t realize you were going to leave.”

Ouch.

Val’s jaw drops open. “I…”

“I mean,” he interrupts, his voice a little too loud, his hand stroking the back of his neck as he looks over her head, “I mean, like, whatever, I guess you don’t owe me shit. I just thought… I dunno… the other night was fun. The night we were kissing. I didn’t… I didn’t realize you were just going to leave.”

Val internally groans and stomps her feet, desperate to get out of this somehow. “Shawn, listen, I just… it was just one night, right?”

“That’s the thing!” he croaks, his eyes bright as he looks into hers, “It wasn’t. It wasn’t just the one night. And you weren’t… I dunno, you weren’t acting like it was the kinda thing you were just gonna leave in the morning. I know we were drunk, was that it? Are you upset because we were wasted?”

“No,” Val sighs.

“No,” Shawn repeats with a nod. He looks thoughtful, “Well, were you trying to get back for bus call then?”

Val opens her mouth, hesitates, and shuts it. Shawn flattens his lips, looking like a disappointed babysitter. She feels a little indignant for a moment. Then she remembers how hurt he’s looked all day when she pretended not to notice him putting himself in her path.

Shawn licks his lips. “Guess you just wanted an orgasm then. That’s fine. You got what you came for.”

He turns and starts to walk away, still rubbing the back of his neck. Val’s lips purse. Without her consent, she hears herself speak.

“I didn’t actually.”

What. The. Fuck.

He turns and lifts his eyebrows. He walks back over to her, hands in his pockets, ready to listen.

“You didn’t what?”

The words hurt coming out. “I didn’t orgasm.”

Shawn’s entire demeanor changes. He hunches a little, looking shorter. His cheeks get pinker, his eyes get lighter. If she thought he looked like a kicked puppy before, he looks like a betrayed cherub now. He blinks quickly, trying to understand.

“What—what do you mean?”

“I faked it,” she whispers, crossing an arm over her stomach and sucking on her top row of teeth, head hung in shame. When she dares to look up at him, he looks like he’d rather melt into the floor.

“Oh… I didn’t… I mean… oh.”

Val knows which category he belongs in now. No asshole loser pleasure-ignoring lead singer type would react this way if faced with the idea that he didn’t make someone come. No. This is inexperience. It’s written all over him.

“I’m… sorry,” Shawn murmurs. Val’s heart aches.

“It’s ok. I mean, it wasn’t… like, we were drunk, it wasn’t a big deal,” she reasons.

He doesn’t seem to see it that way. He shakes his head, like he’s going through his mental rolodex of women he’s slept with and trying to riddle out how many of them have lied to him.

“Shawn, it’s ok,” she tries, stepping forward a little. He looks at her, pained and embarrassed.

“Maybe it is because we were drunk,” she suggests, sounding hopeful. Shawn sniffs and nods at his shoes. After a moment, he looks up again. There’s something different in his eyes.

“Can I try again?”

Val is dumbstruck. “What?”

“If you’re up for it, I’d like to try again. I want to make you come.”

The noise in Val’s throat is totally involuntary and makes his lips twitch into a smile. It gives her away. She also feels a rush of wetness in the crotch of her panties, so her body certainly knows what it wants.

Val swallows. “I… really?”

Shawn looks almost annoyed. She blinks.

“Yes. Please. I want to.”

Val groans from the back of her throat. “I mean… ok. Yeah. I guess.”

Her agreement isn’t exactly filled with enthusiasm. Shawn doesn’t take it personally. He dips his head, chuckles and kicks a shoe at a patch of grass below him. He looks up at her from under his eyelashes and she sighs.

“Are you seducing me, Mendes?”

He shrugs one big, powerful shoulder. “Is it working?” He smirks.

Yep.

Her lips twitch. “It’s inappropriate for me to make a joke now about you needing to work a little harder.”

Shawn’s jaw drops. Val smiles. She takes a step into his imposing form and presses a hand to his lower back, lifting onto her toes so when she speaks, her lips graze his earlobe.

“You ready for round 3?”


	5. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Language, NSFW, sexy sexy guidance

_“You ready for round 3?”_

Shawn tries not to think about the way his knees go a little weak at the way she says it, like it’s almost competitive.

They’re leaving together like they have for the past three nights and he absently wonders if everyone on the tour knows about them now and what they might be thinking about it. He’s a little embarrassed of the piece of him that hopes people are staring at him, cursing his name, muttering “lucky bastard” under their breath because, well, he is.

Shawn takes her hand as they trudge up through the dunes back to the bus. He wants to assure himself that she’s here, that she wants him again. He wants to know he can do this. He has to be able to do this.

It’s not like he hasn’t. Or, so he thinks. Admittedly, Val’s confession that she faked it did have him mentally careening through his pretty short list of sexual partners to wonder if their reactions were also false. He stopped that train before it could derail him to the point of total nonperformance. Because that’s not an option. Not tonight.

Val doesn’t ask him for a location suggestion, she merely guides him toward her bus. He’s relieved because he knows half-falling off his van bench probably contributed to their little issue the other night and he can’t take any chances with her pleasure again. He’s got to pull out his best moves.

He doesn’t actually know what those are yet but he’s hoping he finds out in the next few minutes.

Val drops his hand to wrench open the door to the bus because the handle’s a little rusty and she’s shaky with anticipation. It’s not often she gets this kind of chance – she’s never really felt the need to share with a partner when they haven’t pleased her. I mean, she’s never had to. It’s not her job to teach a clueless teenager about the female orgasm.

But as she glances over her shoulder, Shawn’s eyes are nearly sparkling at her in the dull orange of the low bunk lights while she leads him to the back lounge. He bites his lower lip so that black ring juts out at her again. She locks the lounge door behind them.

She wants to make it kinda easy, at least at first, so she does the thing she and a million other little girls learned watching femme fatales on TV – she leans back against the door and flutters her lashes at him, wearing a soft smile.

“Have at it, then,” she whispers, brushing her tongue along her lower lip, watching his hands shudder at his sides.

She hears the little groan in his throat and she tenses up, ready for him to lunge at her and begin ripping her clothes off. He deviates from the script she expects and settles in against the door around her, gently reminding her how… large he is. She squeezes her thighs together involuntarily.

Shawn starts small. He presses soft kisses against her hairline, down to the tip of her nose, against the apple of each cheek, in the subtle divot of her chin that almost matches his. Meanwhile, his fingers tread carefully up and down her sides over her t-shirt, and the motion has the cheap cotton pulling up over the swell of her hips. He gets just a little bit of her bare flesh there, and it has his mouth going try against her sugary skin.

It’s almost… searingly intimate. Val finds herself closing her eyes at the touch of his lips to her, wondering where this is coming from. It wasn’t like this the other night, she doesn’t think. The memory is slightly hazy, but intact enough to remember how… blunt he was. He was big and brawny and not overly conscientious in his actions. So tonight, as he brushes his lips along her fluttering lashes and smiles at the tickle of them on his skin, Val is at a total loss.

She tugs at him impatiently and he realizes maybe he’s gotten a little lost in her, too. He smiles against her jaw and pecks at her lower lip, an assurance he’s still with her, he’s going to make it happen this time.

Val lifts her arms at his silent prompting and shimmies to allow the clingy The Rocket Summer tee up and over her voluptuous breasts. She finds it endearing the way Shawn’s eyes drop to them, partially hidden by a boring gray heathered Gap Body bra because this wasn’t supposed to happen tonight, but fuck it. He’s looking at her breasts with his lips parted gently and it makes her want to, frankly, mash his face into them. She doesn’t, though. She lets him drop his lips to her shoulder and mouth at her while he experimentally tugs at the button of her Bullhead skinnies.

Val nods, again endeared by his continued quest for consent. She wriggles against the door, hearing the studs scrape as she ditches her jeans in a puddle by their feet. Shawn mumbles a swear and peels her off the door into his arms, walking them backwards until he… smacks his head against the wooden paneling. His shoulder muscles tighten under her hands and he snaps his lips away to wince.

Val pops up on her tiptoes to soothe the back of his head with her long spindly fingers. “Oops. This bus isn’t giant friendly.”

Shawn smiles nervously at her joke and reaches for her again, nodding into her mouth. His lips feel familiar now in a way that shoots a warning spasm down Valentina’s spine. She ignores it in favor of drowning herself in them.

Shawn’s skin is so smooth everywhere she can find, and she’s found a whole lot of it. She digs her fingernails into his shoulder blades a little when he nips expertly at her earlobe. His dick twitches in his jeans in response, so she shucks them off him and licks her lips predatorially at the sight of his bare thighs straining against the fabric of his boxer briefs.

“Condom,” she mumbles against his throat, dropping her hands to his ass to squeeze him into action for her. Shawn whimpers loud, helplessly, to Val’s delight. He smacks at the pockets of his ditched jeans for his wallet with one hand and uses the other to yank at his boxers.

He looks up at the tinkling of Val’s giggle. She’s biting her thumbnail and watching him affectionately as he straightens up.

“What?” he chuckles anxiously.

“You’re still wearing socks,” she points out, nodding down at his Nike sweat socks. He blinks quickly and clears his throat.

“Right,” he mutters, shedding them quickly, cheeks going very pink just as fast.

Val bites her lip and redirects, looking him over. His marbled chest heaves, a little sunkissed, a little farmer’s tanned, and it emphasizes how well he takes care of himself. There’s a piece of her that would be perfectly content to sit back with her pencils and draw him, just like this, naked and vulnerable for her, but that piece feels far from her right now. Right now, she wants to see what his body can do.

Val comes back onto her toes to curl her arms around his neck and kiss him hard and fast. Shawn goes willingly, slamming his eyes shut and focusing his energy on yanking at the clasp of her bra. He doesn’t get it done gracefully, but he gets it done.

“Oh, holy shit,” he pants, staring unabashedly at her chest when she pushes him to sit on the couch behind him.

Val blinks, fingertips pressing into the meat of his shoulders. She looks down. She looks back up and smirks.

“What, did you forget about these?”

Speared through Val’s nipples are two little silver barbells. She shimmies a little for effect. Shawn’s eyes go comically wide.

“How do I not remember them?” he whines, sitting forward to get a better look. He pulls her between his knees and eases her down into his lap. The way he innocently brushes his nose against her right nipple, eyelashes fluttering, has her heart jerking desperately in her chest. She clenches her fingers in the sweet little curls at the back of his neck.

“I don’t wanna…” he begins, his voice muffled as his lips press against the side of her breast. She pats at the back of his head for his attention, looking at him questioningly.

“I don’t – I mean, if I play with them, will it hurt?”

Val’s brain rolls its eyes at her rioting heart. Outwardly, though, she beams at his thoughtfulness.

“Nope, they’re old piercings. Go nuts.”

Shawn’s bright smile flashes for a moment before he sucks her dark, pebbled nipple into his mouth and tugs. Hard. Her abs tighten as her body reacts viscerally.

“Ok, not that nuts,” she pants, smiling gently so as not to scare him off. His sweet brown eyes flicker up to hers as he eases up a little. Her hips jerk in reaction to the way he looks up at her in awe as his tongue flicks out against the barbell teasingly.

“Much better,” she praises. Val closes her eyes and feels her hips start to undulate toward him, seeking him out, looking for what he can do for her.

Then, she hears it.

Val’s eyes snap open at the sound of the condom wrapper ripping. When she looks down through her flaxen raven hair, Shawn’s head is down and he’s lifting his hips beneath her to start to roll it onto his only just fully hard erection.

Val inhales and places her hand over his, treading lightly.

“Baby,” she coos, licking her lips, feeing her heart sink just a tad because she had herself sort of convinced this time was going to be a little different, “Let’s slow down.”

She immediately catches the grave concern on his face. She shakes her head. “It’s ok. It’s just that we have all night, it doesn’t have to be quick.”

Shawn looks… well, a little devastated. It occurs to Val suddenly that maybe he’s never really received any feedback in bed. Maybe he’s never been instructed or corrected or helped along in any way. Maybe this is completely new.

She breathes out through her nose and ducks her head to capture his lips. He’s all stiff and awkward beneath her and she knows she’s going to have to work him out of this slowly, gently, like a frightened jungle cat. Even when she pulls back to look at him, he looks disappointed in himself.

“Can I ask you something?” she breathes. He nods warily.

“Was… the other night… was that your first time?”

There’s no hint of judgment in her voice, nor pity. She just needs to know.

Shawn’s eyes lift and his cheeks go even a little pinker. He shakes his head vehemently. “N-no, no, I mean… no, not at all. I’ve never… I’ve just never… really talked about it with anyone. Like, I don’t think anyone’s told me I was doing something wrong.”

He’s so heartbreakingly honest that Val wants to smother him against her breasts again but for an entirely different reason. Her hair flings around her cheeks and his shoulders when she shakes her head. She settles into his lap, hoping her solid weight will comfort him, let him know she’s not about to run again. She also thinks it wouldn’t hurt to look a little smaller, make him feel a little more masculine since he just handed her his heart on a platter.

“You’re not. Listen, everyone’s different. I’m only here to tell you what I need to get off, not explain the mystery of every woman you’ve ever slept with. I can’t speak for them. But I can show you what you can do for me, if that’s what you want,” she says, sweeping curls off his forehead, brushing them against her fingertips and marveling at their softness.

Something in that shifts his perspective enough to have him looking curiously determined again. He lifts the corner of his perfect mouth in a half-smile.

“Ok. Yeah. Tell me what you want.”

Val’s devious grin, the one Shawn is growing to love and fear, makes a sparkling appearance. She nips at his flushed, wet bottom lip and whispers against his mouth.

“I can show you better than I can tell you.”

Shawn hears a whine and realizes too late it’s his. He secures his enormous hands around her hips and holds her as she starts to roll against him, his cock stiff against his abdomen as she rocks against him.

“Just want you to feel me first,” she explains in a breathy whisper, telling him already that she’s definitely feeling him. Shawn shuts his wide brown eyes and notices things he never has before.

He feels the way his toes curl against the filthy bus floor. He hears the brush of her wet panties against his skin, the cadence of her heavy breathing syncing with his. It’s the most erotic sound in the world, better than any moan from any girl he’d tried to please before. He’s desperate for it, more so than for his own satisfaction. Shawn wants her to feel good so bad that it eats at him.

He looks up at her a little desperately, craving more. Val answers his silent plea by leaning more of her weight into him until he’s pressed up against the leather cushion behind him and lifting his hips in time to cant with hers the way she seems to really like by the way she chews on her lip and shudders against him.

“You want more?” she pants, firmly planting a hand against the side of his head and tilting her chin up powerfully.

“Please,” he moans, his voice fucked-out and raspy.

Val smiles down sweetly, magnanimously, and cradles the back of his head to bring him closer to her chest.

Shawn’s gaze falls to her swollen, sharp nipples and their glinting jewelry. He swallows another embarrassing noise and shifts to capture one between his lips. He nips sharply.

Val’s body goes rigid at the overwhelming sensation and she curls her fingers into his hair to back him off. He stares up at her questioningly, his nose bobbing against the barbell.

“Start a little slower. Get me nice and ready, and then go a little rougher.”

Her instructions aren’t clinical, but they’re clear enough for him to understand, which he appreciates. He closes his eyes to concentrate, sucking gentle wet kisses into her areola while the fingers of his free hand brush teasingly against the lower swell of her other breast.

Val’s wetness is very clear to him as she grinds it into his lower stomach. His own cock aches desperately, leaking and ready for attention, but it’s easy to ignore, somehow. He wants her to feel good. Making her feel good will make him feel good. He knows it so certainly, he wonders how he missed it before.

Slow and steady seems to be the way she likes it, at least so far. Shawn fights to quiet his frantic mind and slacken his eager hands. It helps to focus entirely on the way she feels – the taste of her salty-sweetness on his lips and tongue, the satiny feel of her caramel skin on his rough fingertips. It allows him to slow her to the point of a gentle, sweet grind of her soaked folds against him while his tongue and fingers round concentric circles in time against each of her nipples.

Val rests most of her weight against him and lets herself feel every brush, every touch, every lick. She cards her hands through his hair repeatedly, marveling at its softness, feeling her desperate fingers tug a little harder with each stroke. He responds unexpectedly, by slowing his movements further, moving even more deliberately, teasingly, even starting to rock his hips up into her.

Val finds herself beginning to wonder, cloudily, because she’s so hot for him she can’t think straight, if she’s gonna fucking come like this, grinding against his stomach with her nipples in his mouth. Is this happening?

“This is better,” Shawn chokes out, licking his way across her chest for the other nipple.

Val smiles and it’s the smuggest, sexiest thing he’s ever seen. She wraps one of his curls around her finger at the back of his head and tugs playfully. He makes a sweet, muffled noise against her breast and rubs his nose into her skin like he’s so comfortable, he could close his eyes and nap right there against her chest. Val feels that tug again, the one that makes her nervous. But then he’s doing this incredible gentle swirling thing with his tongue like she’s an ice cream cone and she’s purring and then there’s a slamming sound.

Shawn doesn’t even seem to notice. He continues on, slipping the pad of his thumb against the knobs of the barbell on her other breast while Val’s eyes snap open. She looks to the door and frowns. They have an understanding about the back lounge. When a band or crew member has made it known they are bringing company back to the bus, the rest make themselves scarce. It’s common courtesy.

But when they’re drunk and unruly, this rule isn’t always remembered.

Val hisses at the sound of her brother’s booze-soaked hollering – he’s singing a Cute Is What We Aim For song in Spanish. That’s what finally gets Shawn’s attention.

He detaches from his post and looks up at her for instruction. She opens her mouth to explain when they both jump at a crashing thud against the door.

“ _VALENTINA! ABRE LA PUERTA, EH?!_ Fuck, they’re totally fucking.”

Val glances apologetically down at Shawn, whose ears are turning pink as his jaw sets in a hard line that Val wants to lick.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, settling down against his thighs, nosing at the sweaty hair at his temple. He squirms beneath her needily.

“No, wait, it’s ok, we can be quiet,” he pleads, “I really… god, please, I want to make you come so bad.”

If Val didn’t have him wedged between them, her thighs would’ve snapped together in response to his earnest begging. As it is, she tightens and bites her lip.

“They’re not gonna stop,” she reasons, nodding at the door. The noise is only getting louder. They seem to have brought friends.

Shawn looks defeated. She wants to give him a win. She plants a kiss on his jaw and strokes his arm.

“You were fuckin’ great. I’m so wet for you right now.”

Shawn groans, tilts his head back and chuckles. “I know. I can feel you.”

She almost loses all semblance of control because he looks a little cocky now in such a sweet way that she’s sure only he can pull off. She tugs at his lower lip with her thumb and eases off his lap, reaching for his jeans and boxers to hand them to him.

She changes too and watches unabashedly as he tucks himself away, feeling just a little bad that he’s going to have to walk out past her brother and his friends, who Val knows very well are heroes to this kid, with a raging hard-on. But hey, she’ll make it up to him.

She takes his hand and sighs, ready to lead him through to the front. When she wrenches the door open, they’re hit with a wall of sound – Raf’s got a Colombian futbol game on the radio and the clinking of bottles and shot glasses means the party got moved back to the streets bus.

Raf is yelping at the radio in Spanish and almost doesn’t notice when his sister slides past with her very large boy toy.

He looks up and sniffs just as Shawn is passing.

“ _Oye, hermana! Arroz en bajo, eh?_ ” Raf snorts, nodding at her proudly. She sneers and lurches at him to make him flinch. He does, because she’s Val and it wouldn’t be the first time she went for his throat.

Shawn flinches too because he doesn’t know Val well but is pretty sure she could kick Raf’s ass if she wanted to. He pulls on her hand to remind her of their goal. As she storms through the rest of the rowdy group, Shawn keeps his head down and follows, ignoring the jeers, especially the ones in a language he doesn’t understand.

They burst out into the warm, dry air with a huff. Val takes a breath before she turns and fixes him with a hot brown gaze.

“Maybe we can pick this up again later,” he suggests hopefully with a curious tilt of his head. He watches the flood light beams bounce off her unnaturally straight hair. He doesn’t give his hand permission to reach up and slip some corn silk soft hair behind her ear, but that doesn’t stop it. Her full lower lip pops in surprise. He sees something crack open behind her eyes and watches as it seems to simmer under her skin until it makes her smile.

“Maybe if you’re lucky, _papi_ ,” she whispers, hooking a finger into his belt loop to yank him forward. He stumbles and grabs onto her hips for balance, licking his lips to stifle his giggle.

“Papi?” he chuckles in the most Canadian non-accent she’s ever heard.

“Si, _papi_. Haven’t you ever heard a Shakira song?” she teases in that way only she can.

She releases him and pops up on her toes to peck a gentle kiss on his lips, a little less affectionate than he was hoping for, but he’ll take it. He reluctantly takes his hands back and shoves them in the pockets of his tighter-than-usual jeans.

With one last look of curious affection, Val turns and opens the door to the bus.

“Wait,” Shawn croaks, nearly tripping over his own feet to latch onto her before she leaves him. She’s got one foot on the stepladder extending up to the bus door so when she turns, she’s standing right at his height.

In one big step, he’s at her again, both hands in her hair, licking into her mouth immediately. She stumbles nearly off the ladder but he catches her around the waist so he’s holding her against his body awkwardly with her feet hanging in the air and her hands clutching his bulky arms instinctively. It’s oddly passionate and if any passersby saw them, they’d be very curiously confused. But they’re too wrapped up in it to care.

“God, I’m gonna end up writing songs about you, aren’t I?” he breathes against her cheek. Val hisses a breath.

“Fuck, I hope not.”


	6. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Language, NSFW, Bea’s hair is big because it’s full of secrets

As it turns out, Canada is… far.

Val purses her lips and shifts against her flattened pillows, six hours into a fifteen hour drive to Vancouver. An earbud connected to her iPod pops free, rattling her out of her sustained focus on “Sheena Is A Punk Rocker.” She grits her teeth and fumbles with the plastic until it sits back in her ear like she likes.

Val turned the music on to keep the words arroz en bajo from spinning like a vinyl in her head. Spoiler alert: it’s not working.

Val huffs and cranks up Joey Ramone’s growling croon, crossing and recrossing her ankles with her feet propped up on her bunk wall. Her fidgeting makes no difference. It’s in her head now, settled into the gray matter, rotting away.

_Arroz en bajo._ It’s a Colombian phrase used to describe how women treat men they’re stringing along.

It was what Raf half-heartedly lobbed at her last night while she led Shawn out after their interrupted tryst. Val has extensive practice in trying not to let her brother’s words bug her, but perhaps the time away at school has her off balance.

Val thinks the terminology is a little unfair in this case, given the circumstances, not to mention inherently misogynistic. For one thing, Shawn is no more invested in their… thing than she is. He has given her no indication that he expects or wants more from her than what she’s given him. And, obviously, the subtext of the phrase implies Val owes Shawn sex just because they’ve had a few flirtatious interactions.

So, it’s bullshit.

But, the truth is, Val was never really that good at ignoring Rafael. Even when she needed to, even when he deserved it, she couldn’t ever shut him out. She blamed it on the twin thing. It also helps her to believe she has the same power over him, though she feels she wields it more carefully.

Arroz en bajo.

_Bullshit, bullshit._

+

Shawn just likes being in Canada even when he’s still far enough away from home to not exactly feel at home. He likes seeing the familiar grocery store franchises and fast food places and license plates. Up here, he feels a little more grounded, a little less aware of his day-to-day life.

His feet bounce against the window he’s propped them up against. His headphones are fraying around the plug, sprouting silver fibers that make him a little nervous, but he’s too broke to replace them until they actually crap out. And he’s listening to the album again.

The album in question is the sophomore release from Forefront, titled Joy Ride, due out in a week. Aside from writing most of it entirely on his own and sitting through the whole recording and mixing process, he’s heard it more times than he can count. He’s listening to it again this morning just to… make sure.

Shawn’s got a feeling about this one.

He hasn’t said anything to anyone, but he wonders if certain more perceptive members of the band and crew can feel it on him like an aura. He can’t talk about it out loud. He doesn’t consider himself very superstitious, but this feeling has him acting that way.

Shawn has a feeling, as real as the blood in his veins and the bones in his body, that Joy Ride will be the one, the album that makes them, their first big thing. He can’t put a finger on why, really, especially why he’s so damn certain about it, but it’s the closest feeling he has to a kid waiting for Christmas, knowing Santa will bring him the good shit.

Maybe because he’s earned it, they all have. They worked so hard for this one. Blood, sweat and tears are only the first three ingredients they dumped into this album. Anxiety, depression, weed, liquor and overwhelming terror are a few more. They deserve this.

He stares out the window placidly, bobbing his head to the beat of his own voice. In seven days, they’ll know for sure. Until then, he listens alone, thinking about her some more, about the way her hips fit under the grip of his hands, the way her long flaxen hair snuck into their kisses and, oh god, the way her wet panties slid against his heated skin.

Shawn squirms in his seat and sighs, wondering what she’s doing now, probably just a few miles away. The entire Warped Tour is making the trip seem like a caravan, though they’re not really that organized. But that doesn’t stop him from looking out for the Streets bus whenever they stop for gas or a piss break.

He hasn’t seen her, though. The bus was gone when they got on the road early that morning, largely at Shawn’s insistence (he’ll be damned if he misses a barbecue), so he figures they’re too far ahead to catch up to, especially with the way Seth drives.

He wonders if she’ll let him touch her tonight. He wonders if she does, what he’ll get to do, what she might… teach him.

It’s a little weird to think of it like that, and it feels a little kinkier than Shawn’s comfortable with at this point to be a true student/teacher thing. He just… he likes the honesty of it. There’s no posturing, no faking, no unspoken frustration. He just gets to see what gets her going. He likes that. He… god, he really, really likes that.

Shawn closes his eyes, wets his lips and reaches for his iPod. The Ramones might be the only thing that will get him through this road trip without putting Francis’s head through the window, so he turns up the volume.

+

Val has a water bottle in one hand and her Sidekick in the other, attempting to text Bea one handed. Her tongue is stuck out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrates, her feet skimming over dusty fairground stones as she makes her way to the large venue restrooms where she spotted water fountains.

She hears it before she sees it. It whistles through the air, ricocheting toward her head. Val squints, squares her stance and bends her knees, launching herself into the air to knock the soccer ball away with her head. She grunts loud and drops the bottle, managing to hold onto her phone.

Val swivels to confront the crowing and cheering directed at her. Through the late, colorful blasts of sunsetting light, she recognizes the men on the clearing, knocking around the ball that just sailed at her head at frightening speed. She figures only one of them could (and would) risk that.

She spots the bleached spikes of Ryan Key, Yellowcard frontman, as he scampers toward her with a slightly apologetic grin.

“Trying to take my head off three days into tour?” she chuckles, nodding at him when he nears her.

“You’ve never missed a header in your life, Moreno,” he shoots back with that boyish chuckle she’s been crushing on for like, ever.

Val snickers and glances past him at the pick up game shaping up. “Need another man?”

Ryan’s eyebrows lift. “Fuck that. I need a woman.”

Val’s competitive smirk, the smirk that launched a thousand goal shots and at least a few hundred boners, makes its appearance. Ryan shakes his head, jogging back toward the field. Val, conveniently in little Umbro shorts and Adidas, reaches for the elastic bands around her wrist to tie up her hair.

As she swaggers up to the pitch, the other players, a mix of guys from Yellowcard, My American Heart, Alesana and a few others she doesn’t recognize start to woop and holler. When Val arrives is when the game begins.

Val drops her phone by a trusted band girlfriend and feels a squeeze on her arm.

Ryan offers a lopsided grin as he jogs past. “Good to have you back, Val.”

She calls back to him as he hustles to the other side of the field, her fellow center forward.

“I’m not ‘back,’ Key!” She wiggles her fingers in air quotes for emphasis. He just laughs.

+

Shawn cracks his neck, sore from the drive, and stumbles over a stone as he kicks his way toward the venue bathrooms for a baby wipe shower and, if he’s lucky, a glimpse of her.

He strolls along patiently behind a couple of guys from Scary Kids Scaring Kids (maybe?) chatting.

“… they said the clearing’s up here on the left, I think. Swear to fuck, these grounds got bigger than last year.”

“She’s definitely there, right? You didn’t drag my ass out of the AC to see some fuckers from some fuck-ass band doing a fuckin’ circle jerk around a soccer ball.”

Shawn curiously follows a little closer as the guy’s friend laughs.

“She’s fuckin’ there, dude. Tits out and everything. Half the fucking tour is there watchin’ her, waiting to see who she fucks off with this time.”

Shawn swallows roughly. He hasn’t heard a name, but… he has a feeling.

“Fuck, love it when she ends up on the ‘skins’ side of shirts and skins.”

With that final vulgar comment, they round a corner of buses to spot the clearing. The nimrods walking ahead of him aren’t wrong – this gathering has a serious audience. Floodlights were dragged out by some roadies to assist and prolong what Shawn has found to be, well, an actual soccer game. It wasn’t clear by the gross commentary what exactly was happening, but now, as he slides up behind them to watch, he gets it.

It is Val, as he suspected, that’s definitely drawing a crowd. She’s in little athletic shorts and a sports bra. Her nipples are hard and you can see her piercings easily through the soaked, thin fabric. Her body is tight and clearly well-trained. By the skill she shows on the field, Shawn can see how it got that way.

“… shit, man, I know. Heard she sucked Key’s cock for like an hour one night on her last Warped.”

“I heard she let him come on her face,” sniggers the other guy.

Shawn steps back suddenly, feeling his face get hot. He doesn’t want to hear anymore. As he wanders away for a better view, he considers what they’ve said. Is it true? He really doesn’t know. If it is, does he care?

… he doesn’t know that either, but he doesn’t think he has a right to care one way or another.

He runs his tongue over his top row of teeth and, when he hears something coming at him hard and fast, he instinctively ducks.

“Shit!” he hears a familiar voice squeal.

When he straightens up, Val is bounding toward him wearing a wild grin.

“Hi! So sorry,” she giggles, throwing a look over her shoulder at Sean Mackin, Yellowcard violinist, who he suspects was the perpetrator of the bad kick.

“Dangerous place to be walking, I guess,” he chuckles, scrubbing at the back of his neck. He feels his cheeks redden and wills it away, wanting to look and feel as little like a stupid kid around her as possible.

“It wouldn’t be if Mackin would stop attempting bicycle kicks,” she jokes, stepping closer to Shawn and his addictive warmth – it’s somehow both physical and disembodied and it follows him around always.

Shawn nods at the field. “This a regular thing?”

She shrugs. “Semi regular, when we have the time and space. Key usually organizes. He knows I’m always up for the beautiful game.”

Shawn’s stomach swoops. “You like soccer?”

Valentina beams and chuckles, forgetting how little Shawn knows her. “I love soccer. I’m Colombian, it’s a rule. Plus, I was captain of my all-state champ team my senior year of high school.”

If he’s not a puddle at her talented feet, he’s shocked about it. He swallows and nods eagerly.

“That’s so fucking cool. I love soccer. I played on a travel team in high school.”

Val’s eyes glitter mischievously. She toes at the ball at her feet and flicks it up into her grasp, pushing it to his chest.

“Good, sub in for Mackin. I’m benching him.” She turns on her heel and swishes away. Shawn trips after her in skinnies and Chucks without a thought in his head.

“You can’t bench me, I’m not on your team!” Mackin laughs, flipping her off as he leaves the field anyway.

“Mendes, you’re right middie. No bicycle kicks,” she warns, watching him drop easily into position like he’s played with them a hundred times.

_This’ll be fun._

+

She’s so, super fucking fast.

He’s not really that surprised. Of course she would be great at soccer. Of course she would kick ass at a thing that would make her even more attractive to him. Of course she’s gonna hand his nuts to him on a silver platter as she slides past him and his defenders once again for another goal scored between two empty Coronas.

And then she does the Brandi Chastain knee slide and he just prays he doesn’t come in his jeans.

He gives it right back to her, though. He gets up in her face whenever he can, trying not to get tripped up by her feet or his own. He likes that – likes bumping up against her and hearing her breathe hard, watching the competitive cogs in her brain turn as she looks for ways to get around him, which she almost always does.

The game ends at 11pm in an embarrassing 7-2 defeat, but Shawn scored a goal, even if it did take him sacrificing his last pair of sort-of nice black jeans to do it. As the floodlights go out and start to get hauled away, Val watches from across the pitch as Shawn dumps a bottle of water over his hair. He shakes his head like a curly-haired puppy and slumps onto a bleacher, ignorant of the tittering of the girls around him. Val isn’t. She notices everything.

They eye her suspiciously as she strides forward, arms crossed over her nearly bare chest, like she’s stalking into their territory. He looks up at her, panting from the intense game play.

“Good game, Mendes,” she offers, shaking his gigantic hand. She tries to keep her shiver from the touch of his skin invisible to anyone but her.

Shawn grins. “You had an unfair advantage.”

“I know, playing in jeans and Chucks wasn’t fun, I’m sure,” she concedes.

“No,” he laughs, “I meant your advantage was you’re you and you won a goddamn Florida state championship.”

Val brightens up and shrugs. “It was a long time ago.”

Shawn shakes his head at her modesty and stands, reaching for his Ziploc bag of toiletries. She frowns at it.

“Sorry to tell you this but there aren’t showers at this venue.”

Shawn goes a little pale under the sweaty flush in his cheeks. He nods.

“No, I know, I… yeah, I was gonna do a sink shower.”

Val winces. “I remember those days.”

They stand in awkward silence and Shawn tries not to imagine how bad he probably smells. Val bites her lip and cocks her head at him.

“What will you give me if I let you shower on my bus?”

Shawn perks up. _Anything._

“I… uhm… uh, well, what do you want?” he stutters.

Val looks him up and down, predator sizing up her prey. He wants to fall to his knees. He doesn’t know what he wants more – a shower, or her. And he really desperately wants a shower.

“Let’s find out.”

+

Twenty minutes later, Shawn is pressed up against her back, kicking the sliding door shut to the tiny bathroom. His hands wander her bare stomach, admiring the firm plane of her abdomen and the way her breath shudders when his fingers flirt with the band of her shorts.

She’s panting hard like she’s playing soccer again with his lips firmly affixed to the junction of her neck and shoulder. She reaches out and cranks at the shower handle, hearing the water spring to life. Shawn moans at the sound and lifts his head just enough to speak.

“You’re my hero, Valentina Moreno.”

Val laughs loud and clear like a bell. It makes him smile into her sticky skin and squeeze his fingers fondly against her stomach. He closes his eyes, noses affectionately at her temple while she kicks off her Adidas and wriggles free from her shorts. She clears her throat for his attention.

“This shower’s not big enough for both of us,” she breathes, trailing her fingers up and down the hair on his forearm. He blinks dumbly in response.

She peels herself out of his hold and turns to face him, lifting her sports bra over her head and dropping it at his feet with a wet slap. He holds in a shaky breath.

“So you’ll have to wait your turn,” she explains with a breezy smile, turning away to drop her panties off her ankles and step into the steaming water.

Shawn drops onto the closed lid of the toilet seat, stunned and hardening in his jeans. At the sound she makes when the water hits her skin, he flexes his fingers against his tired quads, blinking quickly because he’s afraid if his eyes are closed for too long he might miss something.

It’s… intimate, him watching her bathe herself like this. More so than she realized it might be when she imagined it, when she made him the offer. She closes her eyes and finds herself trying to pretend he’s not there. She rinses her sweaty hair until it falls in seeping curtains down her back, brushing the swell of her ass. It tickles the same way his eyes on her body do.

But his eyes feel different than the ones she’s used to. She spent all night with eyes on her, on her firm stomach, her voluptuous breasts, her toned legs. She wasn’t blind to the multiplying crowd. Word had gotten out that slutty Val was half naked and playing soccer again. She used to mind it. She used to hear her mother’s grating words of disapproval in her head, chastising her for showing her shape. She used to wonder what Raf would think of all the rumors of the men (and women) she’d slept with on this tour and others over the years.

The space she took for college, it helped. And after the year she’s had, all of this, the eyes, the shame… it feels so small in comparison.

Shawn’s eyes, they’re a welcome change. They’re hungry, they’re lustful, sure, but they’re curious and awestruck and a little… worshipful. That’s new. That’s nice.

Val turns to face him as she rinses the conditioner from her hair in long, smooth strokes of her hands. She opens her eyes to see him propped against the wall, cock straining against his jeans, eyes trained on her slick skin like he hasn’t even noticed her effect on him.

The smile she gives him, it’s not that smirk he’s seen on stage, on the soccer pitch, or when she’s shamelessly flirting. It’s warm and sweet and it makes him sit up on the toilet seat lid and lean forward just to feel a little closer to her.

“Beautiful,” he hears himself murmur, like it’s the simplest fact in the world. He watches her chest quake a little with a surprised breath. He can’t imagine how – he knows she knows she’s gorgeous. He knows she’s heard it from everyone else. He chooses not to think too hard about why hearing it from him has this reaction.

Shawn gnaws on his lower lip while she soaks herself in suds that smell like fresh lavender. He watches the bubbles hug her, every perfect inch of her, then fall down the drain when she has no use for them. He swallows anxiously, looking up at her face when she steps out and reaches for her towel.

“Go ahead,” she says softly, nodding at the running water.

Shawn nods quickly, standing to strip out of his sweaty clothes. He kicks them into a corner, a little less nervous this time about being naked in front of her. It’s starting to feel a hair closer to… normal?

Val wraps herself in her towel and sits in the place he vacated, watching him unfurl beautifully under the hot water. His tense shoulders relax, water runs over his tapered waist as he turns under the shower head to soak his entire body.

Val slumps back against the wall as she watches, a little lightheaded. She smells her shampoo as he dumps some into his hand and scrubs his salty curls and it’s got her feeling a little hot and territorial. He’s gonna smell like her tomorrow.

Val shifts, lifting her chin. Her legs fall open. He turns his head to watch her curiously. The towel she’s wrapped around her torso has come loose. He holds his breath, watching her legs spread, watching her hand wander, watching her eyes dare him to hold on.

Val smiles breathlessly. Her smooth fingers stroke up and down her slit, separating her wet lips. Her eyes flutter shut briefly as she starts turning gentle circles around her clit with the pad of her finger. And when she opens them again, Shawn is turned toward her, those familiar lavender suds running down the impressive length of his legs as he forgets himself to watch her.

She squares her shoulders and settles back against the wall, propping her foot up on the sink beside her. He groans unabashedly, watching her blossom open, the prettiest thing he’s ever seen.

“Shawn, turn off the water,” she tells him gently. Without lifting his eyes from her determined gaze, he slaps at the shower handle until the water goes off. He blinks, waiting for further instruction.

Val licks her lips, turning her finger in faster, tighter circles. “Come here, papi.”

Shawn drops to his knees on the damp shower mat below her for a closer look. He glances up to see her sweet, almost shy smile. He has to try to find a way to keep himself under control here, keep from mauling her and taking over her hand’s actions.

He feels her fingertips under his chin. He looks up, staring at her blankly.

“See how I started?” she pants, “Nice and slow… when I tease my clit like this, I get so wet.”

Shawn groans, brow wrinkling. She’s instructive and filthy at the same time. He lifts a hand to her leg, just to touch her. Her hamstring jumps in his grasp, making him smile.

“When I need a little more,” she begins, head lolling back softly, “I make the circles tighter, rub harder, so my thighs start to shake.”

Shawn nods eagerly, watching as her body responds like she says it will. He can’t help himself. He turns his head and presses his open mouth to the inside of her thigh, just above her knee. Her smile grows.

“Feels nice, Shawn.”

He bobs his head again and swipes his tongue against her freshly clean skin, closing his eyes when he realizes in the silence around them that he can hear the wetness between her slick lips.

“Oh my fucking god,” he hears himself whine.

Her whimpered response has him looking back at her, his chest heaving in time with hers as her fingers quicken. Shawn watches closely, studiously, as she pinches her clit between her fingers and rubs, alternates the speed of her tempo until her hips are canting up.

“Baby,” he begs, but he doesn’t know what he’s begging for. He slides a little closer on his knees until they hit the base of the toilet. He turns his lips back to the floral sweetness of her thigh, rubbing his nose against it to ground himself.

“See my hips, honey?” she hisses, squeezing her eyes shut before looking at him again in a hot daze.

He muffles a groan into her skin at the pet name and nods weakly.

“See how I can’t… fuck… can’t quite keep ‘em still? I need more, baby. Need you to give me more.”

Shawn can almost hear his gaze snap up to hers. She smiles at him, eyes all hooded and molten. She stretches her fingers out to scrunch into the hair at the back of his neck.

“I’ll give you whatever you want,” he hears himself purr, shifting his knees so he can sit even a little closer, his head right between her legs. He licks his lips, like she’s gonna let him taste her.

“I’m so fucking wet,” she pants, “I’m clenching. Need your fingers.”

“Fuck,” he swears, lifting a hand to brush her warm folds. She makes a gentle noise of approval.

“Please tell me what to do.”

Val smoothes her fingers soothingly through his hair and tilts her hips up at him.

“Ok. Ok, baby, just… run the tip of your finger around my entrance. Nice and gentle.”

Shawn looks down and feels a prickle of anxiety. Up until now, he’s just been watching. Now she expects something of him. Now she needs him. He has to make it good for her or he might not get another shot at this.

Shawn wraps an arm around her leg to steady himself and pins his lips to the spot he was dutifully leaving on the inside of her thigh. He reaches out and sweeps the tip of his middle finger so slowly, so delicately around her fluttering entrance, just flirting with the idea of pleasing her. Her back arches off the wall behind her and Shawn wants nothing more than to sit up and take a nipple in his mouth while he fucks her, but he won’t dare. He’s going to do what she wants, when she wants, and exactly how she wants.

“Ok,” she coos, rolling her hips at him needily, sending a thrilling wave of confidence down into his bones, “Ok, Shawn, need you fuck me with your fingers. Please.”

He exhales sharply and feels his cock twitch against his lower abdomen. He ignores it in favor of focusing on her. He lands a quick, teasing nip on her inner thigh and stares at his finger as he curls it slowly into her soaked, seizing walls.

Val moans, low and rough, tugging at his hair encouragingly until his finger is sunk in to the palm.

“That’s good, that’s so good,” she rasps, nodding, “Please.”

Shawn slides his finger back out until her sweet warmth holds in just the tip, then nudges it back in, marveling at how easily she takes him. He licks his lips, alternating watching his finger as he thrusts it in and out, starting slow and gaining strength just like she showed him she likes it with everything else, and watching her black-varnished fingertips flicking quickly across her clit.

“Feel good, Vally?”

Val’s eyes shoot open. She grins and it’s the cutest thing he’s ever seen, contrasting oddly with how fucking hot she is right now. She playfully squeezes his finger in her pussy.

“What’ja just call me?”

Shawn goes so red he’s almost purple. He turns his face into her leg again like a child hiding in his mother’s skirts. “Sorry, I made it weird.”

“No,” she giggles, and her walls go tight around his finger again, “No I like it. It’s cute.”

He looks up from her brown sugar skin. His lips are drawn in a proud close-lipped smile. The hand on the back of his neck lifts and sweeps through the damp curls on his forehead affectionately.

“Can I ask you something?” he whispers, looking down at her pussy again, swirling his finger.

“Now?” she chokes, bucking her hips at him.

He bites her again playfully, feeling her leg leap beneath him.

“Can you help me find your g-spot?”

Val’s lips twitch. She can’t really tamp down her goofy smile. She wriggles her pelvis teasingly.

“Press the pad of your finger upwards, toward my stomach. Start to drag it out, nice and slow, until you feel the spongey part.”

Shawn obeys. He slides his finger out until it’s just a couple inches inside her. His brow wrinkles. He presses harder.

“Right there,” she hisses, confirming his suspicions, “Stroke it for me.”

“Yeah,” he whispers, curling his finger against the spot, “I wanna make you come.”

Val had stilled her fingers against her clit while she was instructing. With a wicked smirk, she starts them back up again. He matches her pace.

“I’m gonna give you what you want,” she purrs, toes curling against the linoleum, voice going high and breathy.

Shawn falls under. He feels her slick warmth in his hands, her needy fingers in his hair, the searing touch of her naked skin against his. And he knows for certain now that no, he’s never felt anything like this before. When she lets go, he knows it. There’s nothing fake about it at all. Her face goes red, her body thrashes, she clenches his finger so tight he thinks she might snap it off inside her. She moans his name in a voice so pretty he closes his eyes, hoping that reducing his senses will help him save the memory of it.

He’s silent, obediently fucking her through the orgasm until she grunts and wiggles away. He slides his finger out, sucking it into his mouth without thinking.

_“Ay dios mio…”_ Val sighs, sitting up to watch him catch a dribble of escaping wetness with his tongue.

“Did you like that?” he asks, eyes all big and wide, voice muffled around his fingers as he sucks on them mindlessly.

“I… loved that,” she admits. The warm, sweet smile is back. She carefully lowers her leg from the sink and drops herself into his lap, draping his arms around her shoulders while he chuckles at her.

She opens her mouth to speak but they hear another voice instead.

“Val? I’m… really sorry, but I really gotta pee!”

Val’s face screws up in a way that has Shawn kissing her cheeks.

“Poor, long suffering Naveen,” she groans, scrambling to stand and brace herself against the sink as her knees wobble.

Shawn stands after her, glancing down at his sweaty clothes and slowly softening cock. The thought registers in her head as soon as it does in his.

“I should just–”

“Why don’t you–”

They stumble over opposing thoughts. He nods at her to proceed. With one final moment to consider, she hands him the spare towel bundled under the sink and nods at the door.

“Why don’t you stay with me tonight? I can find you some walk of shame clothes tomorrow that don’t smell like Satan’s asshole.”

Shawn balks – too many thoughts in his head. One, a reaction to the “Satan’s asshole” comment. Two, borrowing clothes? From Val? From Raf? Three, sharing a bunk with Valentina Moreno, and all that goes with it. Like she can see each one as they bounce through his brain like ping pong balls, she plants a hand on his shoulder and sweeps her own towel up over her chest to tuck it into place.

“Not a marriage proposal, Mendes, just a bed. Or a bed-adjacent situation. Your other option is to put your gross clothes back on and slink off to your van.”

It’s not a choice at all.

It’s still early. The bus is quiet. Val takes his hand to sneak him back to her bunk, lets him snuggle in first because she doesn’t ever sleep through the night so she should be on the curtain side for easy escape.

In fifteen minutes, they’re dead to the world, tangled in wet towels and warm limbs, two punk kids asleep before midnight for the first time since they were 14.

+

Val awakes with a start, her eyes opening to a faceful of chest.

She makes a squeaking muffled noise of protest and smacks at the clean pale flesh above her. It shifts to free her face and sit back.

“Fuck, shit, I’m so sorry, I was trying to crawl over you and I… fell,” Shawn confesses. His eyes are sleepy. His cheeks are warm and pink. His firm body has wedged itself between her thighs as she feels… all of him.

Her eyes flutter. She swallows sharply. “You dope. Were you going to walk out there naked?”

Shawn frowns and reaches for the towel that he shed in the night and smiles at her crookedly. “‘Course not, Vally.”

She squeezes her thighs around his hips and shuffles out from under him, shaking her head.

“Be quiet, though, it’s super early,” she warns.

Shawn secures the towel around his waist and manages to pull himself out of the bunk to stand. “It’s not. It’s almost 11am.”

Val’s expression goes blank. “What?”

Shawn hands her his phone. It confirms what he told her.

“We slept for… 11 hours,” she states. He nods.

“I can’t remember the last time I slept…” she pauses, shaking her head, “Ok, no, nevermind. Go, go pee. I’ll find you clothes.”

Shawn shuts himself in the bathroom. Val sits up on the edge of the bunk, loosely wrapped in her towel.

_She slept through the night._

Her heart races faster than even her mind. She feels like she’s swallowing marbles. Without looking, she digs through the trunk under her bunk for a pair of Raf’s old soccer shorts and a t-shirt she thinks may have once belonged to Zack Merrick, All Time Low bassist extraordinaire.

Shawn returns, towel still around his hips. He takes the clothes she offers wordlessly, trying not to look too curious about the expression on her face.

In two minutes after he changes and collects his shit, he returns to her looking the same way. He kneels before her, catching her attention.

“Hey,” he murmurs, cupping a hand around the back of her neck. He looks her over, dumbfounded face and all. He leans in to press a kiss to her neck and subtly inhale the scent of her skin.

“Your hair looks gorgeous curly.”

With that, he stands and strolls out the front door of the bus, whistling “Sheena Is A Punk Rocker.”

+

Bea looks up at the clatter of the Streets bus door. Her long mouth twists into a snickering grin.

“Good morning, Slutting Beauty,” she greets, lowering her white framed glasses down her little ski slope nose to regard Val.

Her hair is up in a curly knot on top of her head, and that’s not the only unusual thing Bea notices. Val is also bare-faced and looking well rested in little pink Nike shorts and one of her brother’s shirts – Bea swallows the thought she has about recognizing it as one she’s borrowed before too.

Val offers a dry smile and hooks around the corner to find Naveen with his feet up on her booth, all set and ready for the day.

“Naveen, you sweet, beautiful man,” Val praises, bending down to cup his furry cheeks and kiss each one.

Naveen groans and wriggles away, standing to relinquish the folding chair.

“I know, I know, I’m a real prince. I was up early talking to my mum and dad anyway. Sit. Chill. I bet if you flirt with her and offer to watch her table, Bea will find you some food.”

With a warm fraternal grin, Naveen sets off toward main stage as he hears the start of Pepper’s set.

Val plops down in the mesh and nylon chair with a grumbling sigh. “I’m the world’s worst merch girl.”

“Good thing you have brothers in high places,” Bea quips, standing from her booth next door to wander over and perch on the edge of Val’s table.

Val stomps down on the biting words that come to Raf’s defense in her mouth whenever Bea brings up her brother. Instead, she licks her lips and smiles.

“You look smug, my dear.”

“You look fucked, my darling.”

Val simpers and folds her legs under the table, conscious of the mark there that she hasn’t put much effort into hiding.

“I am. The fingers on him, I swear…” Val muses, wrinkling her nose bashfully at the memory.

She looks up and squints through the harsh morning sun. Bea looks pleased… but wary.

“It’s nice, seeing you like this. Refreshing. I feel like you needed it,” Bea points out.

Val stiffens. “Are we doing this now?”

Ever wise, ever enigmatic, Bea shrugs. “We don’t have to do it ever, Raf’s told me you’re dealing with it. That’s enough.”

Again, Val’s sisterly concern bubbles up in her throat. Don’t talk to my brother, it chants.

“It’s just fun, Bea. That’s all.”

Bea nods, placid and completely unconvinced, Val can tell. “Good. Fun is good right now, I think.”

Val bites her tongue, bites it hard. Bea traces the slope of Val’s nose and boops the end.

“I’ll go get you some food. Watch my table?”

Without an answer, Bea breezes away and Val is still, as still as porcelain, as still as the china doll she’s been treated like for three months.


	7. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Language, NSFW, people feeling things

Val winces at the sound of the coffee grinder. Her brain spins with it, whirling her half-asleep non-thoughts into a hurricane that makes her sick to her stomach. Her eyes flick open when she gasps for air. The plaguing insomnia thoughts release her like a spinning top onto a hardwood floor.

She throws herself out of the bunk to stand. Reality will save her. She stumbles to the front lounge to sweet talk her way into some desperately needed coffee. She expects to see Raf in ratty old plaid boxers slumped over the counter, mumbling lyrics to himself.

Instead, she hears the sugar-sweet giggle of Bea, the giggle Val knows as the “come fuck me” giggle.

Now alert, she nearly tiptoes in like she’s afraid to startle them in their natural habitat. Bea is setting out mugs while Raf, fully dressed before 10am for the first time in recent memory, tells a story about a night out in Miami Beach last summer, holding the coffee grinder as it rattles.

Bea notices her first. “Hey, babe.”

Raf turns and has a full conversation (read: argument) with Val in a glance as Val strides forward to plop onto the sofa to supervise.

“Good morning,” Val replies coolly.

“Coffee?” Bea offers. Val nods a reply without looking away from Raf, who’s looking anywhere else.

“You don’t look so good, lovey, did you sleep much last night?”

Finally, Val peels her accusatory gaze away to regard Bea suspiciously. Bea pretends not to notice.

“No, not really.”

Bea tips her head back and forth, “Weird, feel like you’ve been sleeping better lately.”

The energy in the room shifts. The imaginary daggers she was pointing at her brother and best friend are angled at her now. She tucks her legs up into her chest and shrugs. Raf swirls a fingertip around the rim of his mug.

“Comes and goes,” Val croaks. She has a way of going softer than she’d like under Bea’s watchful eye. It’s annoying.

Bea sets the coffeemaker and wanders to sit by Val, curling into the cushions to look a little less threatening. Val isn’t fooled. She feels cornered.

“Things with you and Shawn are moving along, huh?” Bea hums.

Val exhales slowly through her nose. “It’s all casual. Not a big deal.”

Bea bobs her head quietly. “Casual’s good. I guess… I guess when you came back to tour I didn’t imagine you’d be sticking with the one guy. That’s never really been your style.”

Val sucks on her teeth and shakes her head. “Like I said, it’s casual. We haven’t had any kind of talk about what this means or what we are. And…” Val’s voice chokes off for a moment, “And there was one guy at one point, Bea. Not that it’s really any of anyone’s business. But there was.”

Bea reaches out one small, spindly hand and strokes Val’s arm. Val tries not to flinch.

“You’re right. I know there was one guy. I didn’t mean to– y’know.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Val sees Raf turn away to the coffeemaker uncomfortably. Val closes her eyes.

“We just want you to be careful, yeah?”

Her eyes snap open again at Bea’s words. Her chest goes a little tight. Rational thought seizes in her brain.

“We?” she croaks.

Raf shrugs, “Don’t get weird, V, we were just talking about… this year. We love you, that’s all.”

We. Her blood simmers. She feels herself stand. She definitely doesn’t need coffee anymore.

“Keep your worries to yourselves,” she whispers, head down, eyes on her feet. In five minutes, she’s dressed and striding past them, headphones on, looking for a change of scenery.

+

Shawn swallows like he thinks the motion will tamp down the wild racing of his heart. He watches her jog past the van in shorts and Nikes, headphones on, away from the world. He has to fight the instinct to leap out of the van to catch up with her, just to be around her, just to feel close. He also fights to ignore the hooting of his bandmates as they notice his gaze.

He’s been fighting with himself a lot lately, he realizes, especially when it comes to her. He knows he should probably be concerned about that, but he can’t bring himself to care. He’s having fun.

He deserves to have fun. His last relationship didn’t end well. Bethany shouldn’t have made him choose between her and the music (but, to be fair, he should’ve known better than to think she wouldn’t). Val… god, Val is fun.

Sneaking off from barbecues to mess around is time honored tradition on Warped Tour. Val and Shawn are The Ones to Watch – the ones that, when they do leave together, usually not in a very sneaky fashion, everyone around them exchanges knowing glances and eyerolls. It doesn’t happen every night or anything. Honestly, neither of them really has the energy for that and, though they haven’t talked about it, that level of togetherness feels… dangerous.

So Shawn bucks his hopeless romantic roots in favor of this, whatever it is. Sometimes it’s easier than other times. Times like today, when they have a full day off in Denver before leaving for Phoenix, it’s harder. Today, a piece of him wants to go knock on her bus door and go for a walk, hold her hand, pull her behind a tree and kiss her neck and feel her giggle.

He keeps his mouth shut and watches her pick up her pace like she’s chasing something. He tries not to think about what it is.

A shoe to the back of his head gets his attention.

“What?” he barks, turning to glare at Carter, who’s sniggering and reaching for the joint Francis is passing around.

“You’re so fucked, my man.”

Shawn wrinkles his nose and slides down in his row of seats, kicking at a plastic water bottle at his feet. “I’m fine.”

“Have you started writing about her yet?” calls Seth from the passenger seat. Shawn shakes his head.

“No, dude, we’ve known each other like a week. And it’s not that kind of thing.”

Seth keeps his mouth shut, turns away and smiles, taking a hit from his own spliff before passing it over to Andrew.

“That’s when we’ll know,” quips Francis, “That’s when he’s well and truly fucked.”

Shawn grumbles in protest with the joint between his lips but knows there’s precedent. When he likes someone, the feelings come first and the music follows. It’s like the brain sending signals to the body, it’s that automatic. Shawn himself figures it’s only a matter of time before his emotions are singing like a tea kettle and he’ll have to release the steam by writing his heart out.

He just – he wants to hold onto easy and simple a little longer.

“We’re supposed to be celebrating, assholes,” he points out, coughing softly as he passes to Carter. Carter nods.

“It’s true. The day has come, gents.”

“ _Joy Ride_ has arrived!” Andrew cheers, laying on the horn, startling a few stragglers hanging around the fairgrounds.

The Forefront band and crew joins him, screaming and slapping the leather bench seats and stomping the plastic footwells. They’ve waited long enough, worked hard enough. Now they wait for judgment.

The idea of it makes Shawn a little sick, so he reaches back to intercept the joint from Vince, who hands it off without a fight. With one more long, slow inhale, Shawn’s thoughts melt inside his head. He leans back, glances out the window, watching her run far away from him. He closes his eyes.

+

This high up in the mountains, it’s nice and cool at night. Everyone who isn’t out at bars (a.k.a. everyone too broke or too cool to head downtown) is outside wandering Invesco Field trying to cram in as much fun as possible before midnight bus call. Cool weather is in short supply on Warped Tour so when the temperature is below 80 at any point in any city, punk kids can be found draped in lawn chairs smoking and drinking in the open air. It’s another Warped tradition.

Val doesn’t get much cool dry air being from Miami, so she takes advantage. She wanders the grounds with one earbud in listening to Death Cab for Cutie and kicking rocks with her pink and black checkered Vans.

The truth is, as much as she does like the cool air and its restorative, calming qualities, the real reason she’s turning circles around the collection of buses and vans is that Bea and Raf are on the Streets bus watching The Departed on DVD. And she wants no part of it.

She’s trying to make sense of it, all of it – their motivations, her personal feelings. They’ve become a wet, sloppy, tangled mass of hopeless whining in her head. This kind of emotional confusion makes her feel… small. And Val hates feeling small.

She rakes a hand through her flat-ironed hair and exhales slowly through her mouth, kicking at another good sized stone in her path. When she looks up, she notices a figure walking ahead of her, loping along in a backwards Blue Jays cap and a black t-shirt and jeans. She smiles.

Perfect.

Val pauses her music, tucks her headphones in the pocket of her hoodie and jogs over the gravel to catch up and bat gently at the brim of his hat.

Shawn jumps, shoulders tensing as he whirls around. When he sees her several inches below him looking smug and mischievous, he huffs a laugh and pauses his own music – Streets of Gold, as it happens.

“So where the hell have you been all day?” she hums, falling into step beside him, looking down at their feet as they walk in sync.

Shawn shrugs. “Hotboxing the van for about the last… seven hours? When in Colorado…”

Val chuckles. “Indeed. You needed a break?”

“Yeah, after hour five the world gets a little too fuzzy.”

Val nods in understanding and decides not to comment on how much he reeks of weed. A thought occurs to her.

“Hey, shit, _Joy Ride_ is out today!”

Shawn smiles shyly and bobs his head, kicking aside the same stone she’s passed on this circuit four times. “Yeah.”

“That’s so great,” she coos, squeezing his arm and deciding, for now, to hold on because it feels nice. Her hands are cold and he’s always warm, “You must be kinda relieved.”

“I’m nervous as hell,” he admits in a sweeping, shuddering exhale. He’s grateful for her grounding touch on his arm. He lifts his free hand and rests it on his head as their pace slows.

Val knows the feeling well. In her two album releases as a member of Streets, she was so anxious she couldn’t keep food down. Shawn’s habit of pacing seems a little healthier, at least.

“I haven’t heard it yet,” she admits.

Shawn cracks a grin. “Well if you hate it, don’t tell me.”

She snickers. “I won’t, I promise. I’m an excellent liar.”

Shawn feels his skin prickle and shrugs, flicking his tongue at his lip ring. “I hope not.”

An awkward sort of quiet sets in. Val clears her throat and rumples her hair, absently running her fingers along the inside of his arm, not realizing it sets him on fire. He bites his lip.

“So, what are you avoiding then?” he asks.

Val nearly stops walking when she realizes her first instinct isn’t to lie to Shawn about how maybe the guys have girls on the bus, or they’re playing video games. She finds she wants to tell him the truth. Or… part of it. For now, she indulges the urge.

“I… am keeping my distance from Bea and my brother.”

“Oh, are they…?”

Val shakes her head. “No. They were, for a time. And then again for another time. And then again after that. Basically every tour they’re on together there’s an on/off cycle. It’s a little exhausting. But Raf says he’s really done this time.”

Shawn studies his mental footage of any time he’s seen Raf and Bea interact. He wouldn’t have guessed.

“They keep it pretty well under wraps publicly but it’s kinda the scene’s worst kept secret. The buzz is that most of Streets’ angstier songs are about Bea. The buzz, for once, is right.”

“And she’s your best friend?” Shawn probes, narrowing his eyes a little.

Val feels her chest tighten. “She was. She still is. I… I can’t pretend to really know anymore.”

Shawn’s quiet. He doesn’t understand, but he knows better than to pry. He’s ok just to be near her while she’s feeling things.

A breeze picks up. Val shivers against her will inside her Taking Back Sunday hoodie. Shawn winces, realizing he has nothing to offer her to keep her warm. He glances up ahead and notices they’re coming up on her bus.

“You’re cold. You should go in.”

Val stubbornly sighs and kicks at a stone. It sails into the wheel of the Streets bus. He smiles at her excellent aim.

“Not yet. Not until she leaves. I’ll… I just shouldn’t.”

Shawn looks around helplessly, and makes a split decision. He takes her hand that’s been tickling his arm and tugs her toward the back of her bus. He turns them so he’s leaning against it and shrugs her into his arms, ignoring the shrieking of his desperate heart.

“‘Kay. We’ll just stay like this until she’s gone.”

If Val were to swoon, which she’s certainly capable of now given the way he’s treating her, she’d just fall further into his broad, firm chest, which she’s nestled up against very comfortably.

Something in her head allows her to let go of things, just a little bit, just enough to enjoy this. She lets herself feel the way his heart sprints under his ribs, the way his fingers smooth her hoodie down over her hips to minimize her skin exposure.

It feels… really good.

Shawn doesn’t stop himself from tilting his face into her hair and breathing in that now familiar citrusy scent of grapefruit and blood orange hair products. He also doesn’t stop himself from rubbing her back as an attempt, or so he tells himself, to keep her warm. And when she tilts her head up to nose at his jaw for a kiss, he doesn’t stop himself from indulging her.

This kiss is somewhat different than the kisses they’ve shared. It feels bigger somehow. Like an introduction, like secrets between new lovers, like favorite flavors of ice cream and mother’s maiden names, this kiss is a real exchange. It’s not the hollowness of fucking, of panting each other’s first names and realizing they don’t know each other’s middle names. It’s solid and warm and so fucking scary that they’re both shaking by the time the bus door cranks open and startles them apart.

Shawn stares at her while she busies herself with investigating. Val presses up against the back end of the bus and peeks around the corner, watching as Raf stuffs his hand in Bea’s back pocket as they laugh and stride away toward the New Found Glory bus.

“You ok?” Shawn pants.

After a beat, Val looks back to him and smiles. With that smile, he knows whatever was there a moment ago is gone, at least for now. He swallows the ghost of a feeling that comes with it.

“She’s gone,” Val replies, voice soft and cool like the Denver air. Shawn’s heart sinks.

“You wanna go inside?” he asks, trying not to sound like a ‘yes’ would make him cry.

Val bites at the inside of her lip, looking him over. He’s long and lean and firm and tight and his chest is heaving from the effort of kissing the breath out of her lungs. His cap is askew on his mass of curls and his lips are parted, lip ring shivering against his swollen pink skin. She doesn’t bother with looking at his eyes. She knows better.

“I don’t want to go inside,” she replies, stepping in between his feet and lifting onto her toes to kiss him again.

He was right, he realizes with a jolt, when her lips are back on his and the rest of her body is planted against his needily. That energy from the kiss before is gone. They go from Valentina Sofia, peanut butter cup, Lopez and Shawn Peter Raul, chocolate chip, Rayment to… Val and Shawn.

_It’s ok, it’s ok,_ his brain chants, soothing him, saving him from the indignity of begging for her. For now.

Val feels her brain whir and shut down, sweet relief. She curls a hand up into Shawn’s hair and uses the other to slide his into her back pocket. Shawn whimpers into the soft lushness of her lips and squeezes, dragging her in so their hips meet and he can grind into her like he needs to.

Val thanks him silently for shutting down with her, for not pausing to interrogate her about what the fuck just happened, about where she just went. Instead, she feels his enthusiasm against her thigh and in the way he flicks at her tongue with his own.

“Baby,” she mutters into his mouth, “You’ve been so good for me.”

Shawn whines in agreement, freeing her lips to trail down her neck as she speaks.

“I’m gonna make you feel so fucking good. Gonna make it so worth it.”

Shawn’s body riots, twitching beneath her every touch as she takes his mouth back in a siege of lips, teeth and tongue while her hands yank at the buckle of his belt and the zipper of his jeans. He lets her set him ablaze, rocking his hips into her hands, willing the fire to consume him.

Shawn isn’t ready for it when Val pulls away suddenly to push his jeans and boxer briefs down to bunch around his knees. His lips jerk forward to follow hers until he realizes she’s fucking kneeling and oh god…

Val looks up at him with a hand around his cock, stroking gently, like she wants to watch him burst into tears. He nearly swallows his tongue.

“Val,” he croaks, nodding desperately, “Vally… I’m…”

Val feels her heart begin to swell in her chest at the nickname. She sucks in a breath and plunges her head forward before he can say anything else adorable. She takes him in to where her mouth meets her fist at his base, swirls her tongue, and sighs contentedly.

“Oh… my god…” Shawn pants, his face screwing up as soon as he feels her wet mouth on him. He balls up a fist and presses it back into the paneling of the bus for stability. His knees start to buckle as she bobs her head.

“Jesus Christ, Val–” he swears, almost ready to tell her to slow down because he’s not going to fucking last like this, when he realizes his stamina is probably not what she needs right now.

He glances down to watch her pretty hair as it waves back and forth with her head’s movements. He knows very well that Val knows what she’s doing. Even without the rumors that surround her, he’s sure she’s very capable of giving him the best head of his life if that’s what she wants to do. With the way she’s swallowing his cock right now, he knows, even in his blurry, lust-frazzled mind, that’s not what she wants.

She wants the adrenaline rush of making him come fast and hard and at her own hands. She doesn’t want slow and steady and so achingly hot that it burns them both, like the way she’s been teaching him the past week or so, she wants… now.

Shawn groans and gathers her hair in his hand to hold it away from her face because if this isn’t gonna last, he’s damn well going to enjoy it while he can. She pins his hips hard against the paneling and sucks him down to the back of her throat, moaning and humming to get his toes curling in his black leather high tops. He squeaks her name, one final plea for mercy.

She looks up, dark eyes darker in the moonlight. The look in her eyes feels like a dare – try to outlast this, it says. Try to stay cool while I’m sucking you this hard. Do it, I dare you.

He can’t. Three seconds into watching her eyelashes flutter at him while her lips stretch around his thick shaft and he’s fucking done for. His hips give a series of flurrying twitches against her hands. She bobs her head through it and smiles around his throbbing dick at the mumbled, garbled words of encouragement and pet names.

Shawn slams his head back against the bus. The brim of his backwards hat flips off, sending the cap down to rest at his feet while he fucks her mouth through the aftershocks. When she finally pulls off him, licking her lips and taking a deep breath, she reaches down for the cap and shakes off the dust, placing it backwards on her own head. Shawn groans a chuckle.

“Yeah. Ok,” he gasps, nodding and taking her hand to help her stand.

She comes up level with his chest again and regards him for a moment, looks at the way his pupils have blown out and his face has gone all flushed. In a moment of true sweetness that reflects their kiss before Bea and Raf’s interruption, Val tucks Shawn back into his briefs and tugs his jeans into place, kissing the divot in his chin, then the enamel ring in his lip that she loves so much.

“‘m gonna go inside now,” she whispers, squeezing her fingers around his hipbones, “I’ll see you in Phoenix.”

With that, she turns and walks around the side of the bus. Shawn shuts his eyes until he hears the door open and shut and the muffled voices of her bandmates greeting her.

+

By the next afternoon, they’re in Phoenix and setting up stages and tents for the next day. Val is setting out boxes of merch ahead of time, having refused sweet Naveen’s offers to help in an effort to clear her head.

She’s facing her booth and leaning over the table when she feels something poke at her ass through her Daisy Dukes. She whirls around on her heel and feels her throat relax when she sees the perpetrator.

Jack Barakat, in a pink Glamour Kills shirt and a sideways snapback, holds up a blue Nerf gun with a smirk.

“Nailed it!” he yelps, throwing the Nerf gun at Alex’s feet. Alex rolls his eyes and picks up the gun as Jack skips forward to sling a skinny arm around Val’s shoulder.

“That’s as close as you’ll ever get to tapping my ass, Barakat,” Val says dryly. Alex barks a laugh and drops the gun on the table. Jack hip checks her and squeezes her shoulder.

“How’s tour so far?” Jack asks, kicking at the leg of her table like a child who can’t keep still.

She bobs her head noncommittally. “Good. Y’know, hot. It’s always so bloody fucking hot.”

“Hotter, I guess, when you’re fucking Shawn Mendes every chance you get,” Alex shoots back, wiggling his big thick eyebrows.

“That’s just a rumor,” Val replies slyly, honey-tongued and crossing her legs over one another as she lifts herself to sit on the table.

“Mhmm, just like all those other rumors about you being the biggest slut on Warped Tour,” Alex chuckles.

“I love those rumors. They keep me young and beautiful without having to sacrifice any virgins.”

“You’ve sacrificed more than a few virgins, Val,” Jack laughs, lying back on the table so his shirt rides up over his stomach. She pokes at his belly button and snorts at the Pillsbury Dough Boy sound he makes.

“Did you just come by to talk about my sex life?” Val sighs, sensing something hiding in Alex’s brain.

Alex smiles wryly, knowing Val can read him like a book. It was one of the reasons it was so easy to fall in love with her. He steps closer and glances around like he’s about to relay state secrets.

“I just… I dunno if it’s even true, but I heard the Set Your Goals guys talking… again, no evidence here, but I heard them talking about their merch girl hooking up with, and I quote, “the tall, too good looking one” from Forefront sometime last week. We just thought you should know. Maybe you already did, I dunno, maybe you guys aren’t… whatever.”

Alex shrugs. Val wants to hug him but she’s been fragile enough the last few days she probably can’t do it without crying. Instead she nudges his bare leg with her foot and smiles softly.

“You guys are sweet to look out for me. I don’t know if it’s true. I don’t care, either. We’re just fucking around.”

Alex’s eyes lift from the fluttering banner around her table to hers. She knows as well as he does that the whole truth tells a different story. He lifts a hand to rub the back of his neck.

“That’s cool, Val, if you guys are casual and whatever. You know what you’re worth and shit. I just… I mean, for the record, I think he’s insane if he’s getting it anywhere but from you.”

Val’s body warms through. She laughs, “Spoken like a guy who’s never gotten it from me.”

Jack snickers and flicks his flip flop in Alex’s direction. It lands in the dirt in a puff of dust.

“Yeah, well, if I had, I wouldn’t be looking anywhere else’s all I’m saying.”

Val tilts her head affectionately. “You two are precious. Don’t you worry about me and my lil feelings, I’m fine. Now run along, and give that Rian a big kiss for me.”

“I’ll take care of that!” Jack announces, smacking a wet kiss of his own on Val’s cheek and scurrying away, collecting Nerf darts as he goes. Alex turns on his heel and shoves his hands into the front pockets of his unnaturally tight jeans as he follows Jack back toward the food.

+

There’s… a knock at the bus door.

How odd.

Val lifts her head off the couch as Naveen answers. When she sees Shawn in his usual all black uniform looking smiley and a little shy, she drops one earbud out of her ears and pauses her music.

“Hey,” she greets, sitting up.

Shawn steps inside, ducking his head in the entryway to fit. It makes her smile.

“Came to get my hat,” he explains weakly, “I feel naked without it.”

Val grins and crooks a finger at him, standing to lead him toward her bunk. She fishes it out from her trunk and hands it back to him. It smells like her shampoo now, mixed with his. He tries not to let his eyes roll back in his head when he catches a whiff as he pushes it back over his curls. When he does, she tuts and lifts onto her black-painted tiptoes to take it back and put it in his hands.

“I like your hair. You shouldn’t cover it so much,” she advises, smoothing a hand through it down to the back of his neck. He smiles tenderly.

“Can we talk for a minute?” she whispers, nodding toward the back lounge. Shawn nods eagerly and follows, wrapping an arm around her waist as he shuts the door. He drops his lips to her neck with a gentle groan.

“I can see where you’d get that idea, but I meant… actually talk,” Val says shyly, plucking gently at his arm.

Shawn’s eyebrows lift. He releases her and swallows, following her to sit on the sofa with a leg tucked under him. “Oh. Yeah, sorry.”

“First thing I want to say is, I don’t care if it’s true, you don’t owe me shit, this isn’t an exclusive thing.”

Shawn stares blankly.

“But it’s probably time we talk about it so… I heard maybe you hooked up with Set Your Goals’s merch girl. It’s totally ok if you did, like I said, we haven’t talked about exclusivity at all, so–”

“Nope. No I did not,” Shawn replies flatly, “I’ve never met her.”

Val ignores the tickle of relief in her gut. “Oh. Ok. Well, that’s not surprising, given the way the rumor mill works around here.”

“Seriously, Val, I’m not… I mean, there isn’t anyone…. It’s– it’s just you.”

Val looks down at his hands resting in his lap. They’re totally still and calm. She studies the way the swallow spreads across the top of his hand. She looks back up to see him staring straight at her unflinchingly.

“Ok. That’s fine. But if there were someone else, or multiple someone elses, that’s ok too. Because… I mean, this is casual, right? We’re just fucking around.”

Shawn summons every minute of acting training he had since childhood to answer her.

“Sure, yeah, it’s casual. It just happens to be exclusively casual, y’know, on my end.”

The implication is clear. Val chuckles.

“I know what they say about me, Shawn. It’s ok if you’re curious. I would be. In fact, I am.”

“You’re curious?” he asks.

“I’m curious. Because from the time I got here I’ve been hearing whispers about… I dunno, about you being kind of a player. But then… I mean, when we got… closer, I guess… it didn’t seem like that’s totally true.”

He appreciates how delicate she is about saying “you were shit in bed when I met you and it’s therefore clear to me you’ve touched about two women in your adult life.”

“I… I think people assume stuff based on the lyrics I write and maybe the fact that I don’t have a lot of trouble talking to girls. I grew up around a lot of girls so it was never that hard for me. I guess I don’t know specifics about what people say about me, but it’s probably not true. I don’t take a lot of girls back to the van. I don’t hook up with them after shows. I’m really not that smooth, as I’m sure you know by now.”

Val smiles down at her twisting fingers. “You do alright with me.”

“Because you took pity on me,” he reminds her with a chuckle.

“It wasn’t entirely selfless,” she shoots back with a wink, biting her lip.

Shawn laughs and sits back against the couch, looking down at the dips and curves of her legs and the glossy polish on her toes. “So… what about you?”

“There’s a lot they say about me that’s true,” she admits without much ceremony or hesitation, “I’ve gotten around a lot. Before I stopped touring with Streets, I was hooking up all the time. It felt good and it felt like part of the culture around here. When I left and focused on college, that changed, odd as that sounds. I think I just kinda got it out of my system. So, yeah, the whispers don’t bother me, mostly because I know a lot of them are born from small-minded men who are intimidated by a woman that can hit the skins harder than they can dream of.”

Shawn beams at her unexpectedly. “I know you can do that.”

Val shifts closer so their folded legs are brushing. She tangles her fingers in his hair again because she likes the way his cheeks warm and his eyes meet hers when she does.

“How did you get here, Shawn Mendes?”

He blinks and lifts his eyebrows. “Get where?”

“Here. Warped Tour. Writer of what I believe is the best pop-punk release of the year.”

Her devious smile gives her away.

“You listened to it?” he breathes.

She nods. “It’s… it’s kind of a masterpiece. I listened to it on repeat last night. I was listening to it a few minutes ago when you walked in.”

His face goes all hot and he laughs nervously. “Wow. Oh. Yeah, that’s… great. I’m glad you like it.”

She likes watching him squirm, but relents. “So how did a kid like you find the scene?”

Shawn goes quiet and soft and she fights the urge to crawl into his lap.

“Same way we all do, I guess. The scene’s for kids that don’t feel like they fit in anywhere else. It’s for weird kids who write Harry Potter spells in a notebook and care a lot more about learning the piano than playing hockey. The scene’s for the other kids, and I was one of them.”

Val looks past the bone structure, the firm heft of muscle that covers every inch of him, the sinful good looks and realizes the kid underneath wasn’t always like that and needed something else in his world to bring him stability and comfort and community.

She massages the tips of her fingers against his scalp and treasures the way he leans into it, closes his eyes and lets go for her.

“What about you, Vally?” he murmurs, his voice tired and warm in his throat.

She exhales through her nose and rewinds. “My parents are academics. They wanted me and Raf to be great… somethings. Great artists or doctors or lawyers or musicians. They had us classically trained from a young age. And one day when I was hauling home an acoustic guitar that’s as big as I was after being teased all day in middle school for my frizzy hair and weird Colombian packed lunch, I stopped in an FYE and saw some kids that were dressed cool standing by the pop-punk section buying a CD that came out that day. It was Enema of the State. I bought the last copy they had and listened on my Walkman on my way home. And… and then I found my home.”

Shawn innately understands the feeling. He was at a friend’s house when he first heard _The Ever Passing Moment_ by MxPx and it’s the closest thing he’s ever had to a religious experience.

“It’s just… where we belong, I guess,” he muses, picking at a piece of lint on her leg and flicking it away.

“There’s nothing like the community, I think. It’s not… it’s not perfect, it’s far from it. It can be sexist and racist and homophobic at its worst. And I’ve seen it at its worst. But… when it’s at its best, I think, is… here.”

Shawn nods gently. “Yeah. The spirit of Warped Tour is community, I think, for the other kids. It’s for the angry kids and the scared kids and the kids who don’t know who the fuck they are. It’s for the ones that need it. That’s what makes it great to me.”

“That’s the purest form of the scene. It’s there for those who need it,” Val agrees quietly, still carding her fingers through his hair. After a few moments of reflection, she looks over to see his eyes shut.

Val sits up and lets herself watch him for a minute or two, hopefully not long enough to fall in love.

When she’s ready, she stills her fingers against his scalp and brings her hand down to rest against his cheek, brushing her thumb over his lip ring.

Shawn stirs and blinks at her sleepily. “Woops.”

“Come sleep?” she offers, nodding toward the bunks.

He nods and stands to follow her, tucking into the bunk before her and shucking off his jeans while she does the same. With a maybe slightly too tender kiss to her forehead and an arm around her waist, he falls asleep on her pillow that smells like grapefruit and blood orange.

+

“Oh come the FUCK on, you’re still asleep?!?” barks a voice from outside the bunk curtain.

Val almost bolts upright before she remembers she’s in her bunk and would slam her head on Naveen’s bunk above her. Shawn beside her groans deeply, rattling her whole body where she’s pressed against him.

“I think it’s for you,” she mumbles, drawing back the curtain and wincing at the streaming light.

Shawn opens one eye, tightening his grip on Val’s shoulder as he looks Francis over suspiciously.

“You’re not bleeding from the head, what the fuck do you need?” Shawn hisses into Val’s shirt.

“The fucking review is up, dipshit!” Francis cries in a register Val’s never heard before.

Her eyes are shut, so she just hears the loud _thump_ when Shawn sits up and whacks his big head against the top bunk.

“Fucking – _ow_ ,” he croaks. Val groans into her pillow and rolls over when he turns her to reach for something.

“Oh my god,” he breathes. Val finally decides she should join the land of the living, so she rolls back over and squints to see Shawn holding his head in one hand and a laptop in the other.

“Is that–” she starts.

“It’s the AP mag review,” he whispers. Val’s eyes are open now. She looks at Francis, who seems to be vibrating out of his fucking skin, and back at Shawn.

“Is it–”

“SHH!” Francis demands, widening his eyes at her. She snorts and raises her hands in surrender.

After a few short minutes, Shawn finally exhales. “Holy shit.”

“Good?” Val asks.

“It’s a fucking rave,” Francis answers. Shawn slumps down and curls up at Val’s side, breathing hard. She pats at his leg as it slings over her, reaching for the laptop while Francis attempts a cartwheel down the little walkway between bunks.

As Val reads, her smile grows. She rubs at his leg, absorbing phrases like fresh take on teenage angst and Mendes’s lyrics elevate the sound and Forefront’s coming out album.

When she finishes the review, which was indeed a rave by anyone’s standards, she hands off the laptop to Francis and promises him (read: lies to him) that Shawn will be out in five minutes.

She closes the bunk curtain and curls up against him, brushing her fingers over any part of him she can reach.

“That review’s amazing, papi,” she hums. Shawn releases a shaky breath.

“Yeah.”

“You proud?”

It’s quiet. Shawn sniffles.

“Yeah.”

+

Twenty minutes later, the entire Forefront team is standing outside Val’s bunk while she talks herself into letting him go. But he’s so soft for her and tastes so good in the morning. But, Forefront will not be denied their frontman.

His lips are swollen and there are purpling spots on his neck when she pulls back the curtain to their rowdy audience. He crawls over her with a crooked grin, pinking up under the jibes and barbs of his friends.

Just as he’s lacing up his shoes and getting ready to pry himself away completely, she brushes a hand down his back and nods at his bandmates to give them a moment. She props herself up on one elbow and tickles his arm with the end of her nose.

“Slept through the night again,” she comments gently. He looks down at her unusually shy face.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Think I only do that when you’re here,” she admits quietly, sounding more vulnerable than he’s ever heard her. He swallows sharply.

“Good to know,” he says, tilting his head to kiss her one last time before she pushes him off to celebrate with his bandmates.

That night, as the bus rolls down I-10, Val sleeps through the night again, right under his arm.


	8. Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Language, The Shit Hath Hitteth The Fan ™

“Florida is so fucking disgusting,” Francis whines.

Shawn sniffs and nods, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. It doesn’t help, just spreads more sweat around.

“It’s a swamp, what do you expect?” Seth gripes, kicking at a patch of muddy grass beneath their feet.

The Forefront boys are fucking wiped. It’s the middle of July. Warped has dragged them through 14 cities in three and a half weeks, and they have five weeks remaining. They’re hitting the Warped wall, the one all the bands hit after about a month of slogging through humidity, through beer-soaked afternoons and hungover mornings, through crowds of kids with too many feelings whose resounding screams of familiar lyrics are what keep everybody moving.

“Can we borrow your fuckbuddy’s shower later?” Bobby jokes, kicking aside a smashed-in red Solo cup as they stalk toward Smartpunk for their 2pm set time.

The hair on the back of Shawn’s damp neck stands. He chews on his lower lip so his piercing juts out. A thousand responses fly through his head, some more aggressive than others, and just as he opens his mouth to let one out, Seth clamps a hand down on his shoulder and steps in.

“Val Moreno knows better than to let you anywhere near her bus.”

The rest of the band snickers. Shawn releases a tense exhale and casts a sidelong glance at Seth who lifts his eyebrows and shrugs, ever the willing mediator.

The trek from the van to Smartpunk feels long today and it might just be because Streets’ merch booth is on the other side of the Reynolds Park Yacht Center’s grounds. It gives him less of an excuse to happen to pass her and maybe get a kiss, or, if he’s really lucky, a quickie in a dirty bathroom somewhere.

They arrive at the backside of the stage. Andrew is leading the charge as usual as Shawn dreamily wanders at the back of the crew. He’s gazing around aimlessly, head full of lyrics ready to be written, so he doesn’t notice the commotion. He’s kicking at the ground and biting his lip ring again when Seth nudges him. He looks up and follows Seth’s eyes to where Andrew is talking very close to the face of the bulky security guy. Shawn frowns. He goes to nudge Francis questioningly when Andrew turns on his heel looking flushed and startled.

“Ok. Change of plans. You’re on Hurley.”

“We’re…” Bobby breathes, unable to finish.

“Hurley…?” Seth croaks.

“You mean Hurley.com?” Shawn guesses.

Andrew licks his lips and cocks his head at the band who all seem to have shrunken a few inches each. “No. Hurley.”

Shawn’s stomach lurches. They’re all tripping over their own feet as they change direction and head for a stage that’s two levels of clout above where they have any business playing.

That’s when Shawn begins to notice it. They’re being watched.

The glances, the whispers, if they were there before, they were invisible to him. They’re unignorable now as Andrew lifts his chin and leads them back the way they came, back past a confused looking Carter at what could generously be described as their merch booth.

The Hurley stage… well, for one thing, it has a roof. Shawn’s bad with dimensions but it looks like it’s at least fifteen or twenty feet longer and deeper than Smartpunk. They’ve opened on stages this big when they got gigs at Toronto clubs for bands like Streets and All Time Low, so they at least have the experience of spreading out a little. Shawn can feel the nerves though. Seth is finger drumming against a railing a little faster and less rhythmic than usual. Francis is texting on his Sidekick but looking around anxiously like he’s sharing state secrets. Shawn swallows and closes his eyes. He suddenly really wishes Val were here to like, hold his hand or something.

He’s not crazy about that realization. That’s not what Val does. Despite his reaction earlier to Bobby’s comment, he’s right. They are fuckbuddies. They fuck in Val’s bunk, in the back lounge, in venue bathrooms, at bars she sneaks him into when they have a night off in certain cities. Yeah, he usually sleeps in her bunk with her, but that’s just because he’s like a giant human gravity blanket like she told him. He’s warm and heavy and doesn’t snore and she needs that kind of physical, human comfort for her insomnia. But it’s not, like, romantic.

He rolls his eyes at himself and knows very well all the flashes of imagery he’s ignoring – when she wants his attention, she tugs at the back pocket of his jeans and kisses his shoulder. When they wake up together, he buries her face in his hair and sings her new music he’s working on and she helps him untangle some melodies and lyrics in his head.

It’s hard to reconcile it sometimes, the way they are 15% of the time, with the rest of it.

He’s startled out of his pointless examination by Bobby kicking at the back of his leg.

“Listen,” Bobby pants, wide-eyed and a little horrified by what he seems to hear.

Shawn narrows his eyes to focus. Then he gets it.

“How… how many people do you think are out there?” Shawn murmurs, scrubbing at the back of his neck.

Francis, for once, is stunned silent by the steady roar of the mass of humans waiting on the other side of the stage. From back here, they can’t see them and Shawn can’t decide if that’s better or worse. Bobby shakes his head and kicks at a spare riser to release some tension.

“Fuck,” Shawn croaks, folding his hands over his nose and mouth, exhaling slowly. He feels a hand on his arm. His skin jumps as fast as his brain does, right towards a false conclusion.

But it’s just Andrew wearing a sternly comforting look.

“You guys have done this before,” he reminds them gently, “They’re just… here for you now. Which makes it easier, not harder. You have no one to win over out there. You… you guys already did that.”

Shawn’s breath is shaky in his chest as they huddle up, swinging long, sweaty arms around each other, dipping their heads together to mutter hype words before they break apart and wait for the guy to announce them.

Shawn’s eyes close. This part, this is for him. He knows he has a band around him, he knows he has a family back home that loves him, he knows he has… an unknown number of people on the other side of a stage that came to see him. But these few seconds between the huddle and climbing up the steps to burst onto the stage, those are for him.

They’re for the hours he’s spent yawning through exhaustion, true bone-tired exhaustion, reaching for the right notes, the right words. They’re for the nights he spent facedown on his comforter back home in Pickering with headphones in listening to old Fall Out Boy and Yellowcard and Something Corporate feeling so inspired he thought his pounding heart would burst through his chest and splatter on the mattress. They’re for the times he felt like no one was there but him, like he needed something to believe in, so he drowned himself in pop-punk until he convinced himself he wasn’t so alone. They’re for the kid who pawned his hockey skates without telling his dad so he could buy his first shitty guitar.

When he opens his eyes again, his brain is turned off. Andrew hands him an acoustic and claps him on the shoulder. He ascends the steps behind the rest of the band, following them out to face the crowd.

There are easily hundreds of kids waiting for them, cheering as soon as they come around the side of the stage to take their places. Any lingering concerns Shawn had about the crowd realizing they’ve waited for the wrong band are gone. He locks eyes with a redhead against the barricade. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyeliner is a little runny, but she’s on her toes in battered old checkered Vans to lean over the metal gate to scream for them like she’s loved them for as long as she’s lived. When she realizes he sees her, she bounces up and down, elbowing the brunette next to her, reaching her arms out for him like she’s been waiting for this moment. He grins and tosses her a pick. She snatches it out of the air and gawps like a goldfish, jamming it into her bra before anyone can try to swipe it out of her fingers.

He plays the rest of the show for her, and for everyone like her that needs him as badly as he needs them.

+

“Just try it, come on!” Jack cries, wriggling so he can lift his shirt up to his chest, flexing his non-abs to make a point.

“It’s not going to work,” Val insists, smiling at the girl she’s handing $7.50 change to along with a size large Streets tour shirt.

She looks down at Jack Barakat, who has spread himself out across her merch table insisting she try to bounce a quarter off his stomach because he wants to prove to his bassist Zack that it will work.

“It is!” he whines, thrusting a quarter into her hand, wiggling again, “Come on!”

Val is about to give in and humor him when she catches sight of four very flustered looking teenage girls hustling around the crowds to head toward the larger stages.

“…. what time did the set start?” one barks.

“2!” cries another, raising their urgency.

“Oh my god, I am going to fucking kill myself if we miss Forefront playing on the fucking Hurley stage.”

Val’s jaw drops. She slaps Jack’s stomach for his attention. “The what? What did they say? Did they say Hurley?”

Jack cradles the welt forming on his skin and kicks blindly at her leg in weak retaliation.

“Yeah, they got the call up to the big leagues today. He didn’t tell you?”

Val frowns, a little insecure, “No. How did you hear?”

“Well,” Jack explains, sitting up and swinging his legs, “Alex told me but I think he heard it from Evan who was walking by the Paramore tent and Jeremy told him that he heard it from Josh who was told by–”

“Ok,” Val interrupts, mind blank as a sheet, “You have to stay here. You have to watch my table.”

“I can’t, we’re on in twenty minutes.”

“Fuck!” Val mutters, frantically looking around the stragglers by her booth. Just as she’s about to say ‘fuck it’ and abandon the table altogether, Greg comes swinging out of the bus with a truly horrifying microwaved hot dog in one hand and his Virgin Mobile flip phone in the other.

“Oh, thank god,” she breathes, springing out from behind the table to grab his arm and yank him into her place, “You have to watch the booth.”

“Are you ok?” Greg chuckles, lifting his eyebrows at her.

“I’m fine!” she cries, “I owe you one! Bye!”

Twelve years of competitive soccer have sharpened her sprinting and dodging skills. She bobs and weaves easily around liberty-spiked hair and enormous puddles of mud with a singular goal.

_The Hurley stage. How did that even fucking happen?_

She’s trying not to focus on the fact that he didn’t tell her this, because he knows as well as she how fucking big a deal it is, and he could’ve mentioned it at some point this morning between sucking her orgasm off his fingers and muttering “fuck, yes, fuck, that feels good” when she let him come in her mouth. But he didn’t.

Instead, she focuses on getting there to witness it. She sees the stage a few hundred yards away and from this angle, she can see the crowd. It’s a far fucking cry from their usual draw – that AP Mag article definitely caught some attention. Her heart swells with pride until she remembers, just after she flashes her pass at Bucky the guard and begins to run up the steps to sidestage, that that pride isn’t hers to feel.

He’s not her boyfriend. He’s her… friend. With benefits. The benefits are really great, especially after a few weeks of practice. But any emotional attachment she feels to his accomplishment of his is… misplaced.

She drops her hand from the railing and steps back from the stairs. As her chest heaves from the effort of racing there, she takes long, striding steps backward, past Bucky’s curious gaze. She swallows, frowns a little at the pang in her heart, and walks around the edge of the crowd to stand somewhere in the back.

Somewhere in the back lands her beside Paramore’s merch tent. She smiles politely at their merch guy Max and props up on their tent leg to take it in.

They’ve just finished “Holiday from Real” and Shawn’s setting up at the keyboard, striking out the first few notes of “Dark Blue.” She has good timing – it’s her favorite off _Joy Ride_ , she thinks.

He’s wearing a soft smile like he doesn’t hear the booming cries of his audience as they begin to register what he’s playing next. He’s smiling like he’s playing for himself, by himself, for no other reason than because he has to to feel real.

“This was recorded on a grand piano,” he begins, licking his lips, waiting for the shrieking of excited girls to quiet before he continues, “So it sounds kinda shitty on the keyboard. But we’re poor and can’t bring a grand piano in a truck for Warped Tour so we work with what we got. You should buy the album because it sounds better on there, I promise. Anyway, this is Dark Blue.”

Val grins, chuckling as she steps aside to let some fans through to the merch table. She’s bobbing her head, lost in the way his face scrunches as he dips in and out of his falsetto, when she feels a brush against her arm. She turns her head and grins.

“Hey, you,” she laughs, opening her arms to shrug Hayley Williams into her shoulder, squeezing her gently.

“Come for a visit?” Hayley asks, stepping away to flip some shaggy fire engine red hair off her shoulders.

Val shakes her head and glances back at the stage. “Just watching, actually.”

Hayley nods her understanding and turns her attention in, biting her lip as she studies the performance. As the final notes fade out and Shawn stands from behind the keys to reach for the scarred blue electric Vince hands him, Hayley bumps Val again.

“They’re really fucking great,” Hayley quips. Val runs her tongue against her lower lip, watching Shawn toss a pick into the crowd and laugh at something Francis says that she can’t understand from this far back over the roar of the audience.

“They are.”

Val doesn’t hear herself answer Hayley. She’s lost.

But, as she stares up at him, watching his head bob and his eyes flutter shut, watching his heel tap the stage to the rhythm Seth pounds out behind him, smiling when he does at the crowd of people that came to see him today, she doesn’t feel lost at all. For the first time in months, she feels… found.

+

Val feels like a goldfish swimming circles around her bowl as she paces around the empty Forefront van. She’s kicking up mud all over the place and it’s clinging to her violet Bullhead skinnies that were already begging for a wash, but she hasn’t noticed. She wrings her hands, cracks her knuckles, untucks and retucks her hair behind her ears.

Val had turned avoiding Forefront’s sets into a goddamn art form. Yes, she caught one or two toward the beginning of tour when her heart didn’t feel quite so… full of him. When listening to him sing was easy and light and a fun new experience. He hadn’t asked her to come watch and she didn’t feel like that was by accident. She had a feeling maybe he had the same thought, that her watching the set was somehow a dangerous idea.

She thinks maybe her functioning human brain just shut down when she heard they were playing Hurley and that’s why the lizard brain took over and dragged her there to stand behind a sea of scene kids. That’s the only explanation she can think of. Rational thought was just… gone.

Now, as she turns crop circles around their 15-seater waiting for them to return from their triumphant set, she knows for certain why avoiding their sets was necessary.

Because now she’s certain that she’s so goddamn in love with him.

I mean, ok, it’s been a month. Maybe love is a strong word. Maybe she’s infatuated, maybe it’s as fleeting as Warped Tour itself. Maybe this time next year she’ll be laughing at the idea of Shawn Mendes. But right now, she slumps against his van and sighs, knees weak at the thought of him.

This was… not supposed to happen. She was supposed to take the summer to move on, to continue recovering and relax before she leaves in the fall. She’s supposed to be spending late nights talking to Bea and bonding with her brother and pranking Alex and Jack at barbecues and swallowing her last gulps of the scene before she leaves it behind for good.

But she knows. She has known it. And she knows it now when she hears his laugh coming up the hill overtop the voices of his rowdy band and crew. She turns and smiles, waiting for him to see her.

She knows it when he stops mid-sentence and races up to her, tackling her against the side of the van as he laughs into her neck, his skin buzzing with adrenaline, ignoring the teasing of his friends. She knows it when he pulls back to smooth hair out of her face and kiss her, so she opens her big, fat mouth.

“Do you want to stay with me in the hotel tonight?”

+

A hotel night with Val is just about the most perfect way to end a day like this, so why the fuck is he dreading it?

Hotel nights are for the lucky few on Warped Tour, bands who are signed to labels with actual cash and generally have been around the scene collecting a fanbase for awhile, a.k.a. not Forefront.

Streets has had two hotel nights so far, both of which Val made excuses to keep from inviting Shawn to. The first, she was “sick.” The second, Bea would be crashing in her room. The reality of both? It felt a little too… much.

There’s something about a hotel room with clean sheets and a view of the city and a shower that could fit them both at once that brings them both out of the grimy, slimy Warped Tour bubble and into a reality that’s a little harder to face. Val hasn’t been ready for that and Shawn hasn’t pushed for it because the longer they keep their heads buried in the fairground dirt, the better off they are.

He doesn’t even mean to say yes, really. But his mouth moves a little faster than his brain and trips right into a “oh fuck, yes.”

Now as he’s walking a little too slowly toward the Streets bus with his head down and hands shoved deep in his pockets, his whole body feels heavy and the buzzing in his brain gets louder and louder with every step.

It’s not that he doesn’t want it. God, he fucking wants it. A night alone with her in a real bed? Jesus. But… it’s going to be so much harder to keep things the way they are after something like this. Everything is changing so fast – he needs the stability, the simplicity of Val as she is, a beautiful escape.

He looks up with a belabored sigh and spots the Streets bus as it covers the sun setting over the horizon. The whole band and crew mills about excitedly outside, but Val is still, looking up over the bus. Her hair is drawn down over her shoulders brushing the bare skin on her back where her Yellowcard tee has ridden up. He finds himself drawn to her, walking right up behind her to plant his hands on her hips and push his nose into her hair for that warm, familiar smell of citrus and her.

Val closes her eyes at the tenderness of it, placing her hands over his and rubbing her thumbs gently over his knuckles. They remain silent, buried in their own conflicting thoughts, somehow aware of the tumult in each other’s minds. Val cracks first, turning in his arms to press her hands to his chest and take a deep breath. She locks eyes with him and swallows sharply.

“Ok?”

“Ok.”

+

“Hey, what’s this little divot in your face?” she breathes, running her whiskey flavored lips over his cheek. He shudders at the feel of her breath and swallows.

“Cut myself trying to shave when I was like, nine.”

Val feels her heart scrunch up in her chest, trying to reject the image. She doesn’t want it. She has no interest in picturing him curly-haired and bright-eyed, a curious nine-year-old with a world ahead of him. She has no interest in the tenderness she feels for him now, ten years later, with that perfect little scar on his cheek that drew her interest.

She has no interest in loving him.

But, after a drink or two from the minibar, she can’t really fight it anymore. Her nails scrape against his scalp as he plods hot kisses down her stomach, smiling gently as her muscles contract. She curls her fingers into his biceps until he pins her arms over her head, stroking into her slow and deep until his heart physically aches. He fucks the tenderness away, sprinting after her orgasm until she’s clenching down around him, swearing in Spanish, breathing hot and hard in his ear. When he pulls out from inside her, his body screams at him to stay, but his brain knows better.

Val turns over with the sheets around her hips and sighs happily into her pillow, tucking her hands under her chin as Shawn stands to ditch the condom. On his way back in, he stops dead in the doorframe of the bathroom and stares.

On Valentina’s back is what is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most beautiful tattoo he’s ever seen.

It’s pretty large, about 8" by 8", a scene out a window in a cracked white frame. He stumbles closer, brushing his fingers over the incredible detail as she purrs at the touch of his fingers on her sex-flushed skin.

“‘S my bedroom window,” she explains sleepily, her eyes still shut under the weight of her crushing orgasm, “From my parents’ house in Miami.”

He’s nodding, lost in the way the palm trees frame the colorful neighborhood, the little kid on a bike riding away. It feels… warm somehow. He’s enamored.

“I designed it,” she whispers so quietly he almost doesn’t hear.

Shawn’s attention is lifted from the art on her back. “You what?”

Val turns her head and opens her eyes to blink at him. “I’m an artist. I designed the tattoo. My friend Erika did it over the course of a couple months when we first got signed. I wanted a reminder of where I spent most of my time when I was a kid, staring out my bedroom window, wanting a piece of the world. Now, though… I like it as a reminder of where I came from, not where I’m going.”

Shawn sniffs gently, seeing a flash of his own childhood bedroom window in his mind – pine trees, a long driveway, ice crystals on every surface. A request bubbles up in his throat for her to draw it for him. He swallows it down.

He bends over her lithe body and presses a kiss to the setting sun in the center of her masterpiece.

He crawls in and falls asleep beside her without another word.

+

He feels a little better when he wakes up.

She’s exactly where he left her, facedown in the pillow beside him with her art on display. Her hair is a nest of wild curls around her since they showered together before bed. He finally feels really clean for the first time in weeks.

He considers their night together while he pulls on a pair of sweats he brought to be ready for the room service he ordered for them. He remembers the haze of anxiety he fought through to be with her, to really be with her, and he doesn’t feel it’s fully lifted, but sharing last night was, for lack of a better word, special.

He’s cursing himself for being the world’s worst lyricist, unable to think of a better word when there’s a knock at the door. He springs out of bed to bring the room service in himself because Val’s still naked under the sheets.

He accepts the tray from the guy with a smile and a small tip because he only has a couple bucks on hand. As he’s maneuvering his way back inside, Raf comes swinging around the corner with a bucket of ice. Shawn freezes, still uncomfortable with the obviousness of his and Val’s relationship around her twin brother.

A series of odd looks come across Raf’s face until it settles on eerily placid. He smiles stiffly.

“Hey, man. You ordered breakfast?”

Shawn nods, attempting a crooked smile that comes off as a grimace.

Raf bobs his head. “That’s nice. You got her French toast, right?”

Shawn nods again.

“Good, good. That’s her favorite. She’s always liked the fancy stuff. Guess that’s why she’s going back to school at Oxford in the fall.”

Raf’s eyes lift from the tray in Shawn’s suddenly very shaky arms. He fixes Shawn with a dangerous glance and sweeps back inside his hotel room to settle in with Bea until checkout.

Shawn stands there dumbstruck, his back holding the door open, until he hears the sheets rustle behind him.

“You got breakfast, papi?” calls a delighted, sleepy voice.

Shawn turns, not looking half as happy as she is. She sits up, sheets pooling around her hips, nipple rings glinting proudly in the morning light as she raises her arms above her head to stretch. She drops them and smacks her lips together before she notices his expression.

Now she’s awake.

“What?” Val swallows, feels her heart begin to work a little harder.

“Raf. Just… he just told me…”

Val goes white as a sheet.

_No._

“Papi, no, he just–”

“I…” Shawn begins, his brow wrinkling, “I think I need to go.”

Val watches him gather his clothes and slip out of the room before she can manage to think of something to make him stay.

+

That afternoon, after being on a low simmer all day, she storms up the steps to the bus and slams the door open, throwing herself into the front lounge. Raf looks up from his Xbox controller. Greg and Naveen know enough to scatter quickly.

Val steps forward and grabs the controller to toss onto the couch.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she barks.

Raf plays it cool, sighing condescendingly. “I don’t know, Val, what the fuck is wrong with me?”

“I don’t fucking know! I really don’t fucking know,” Val seethes, crossing her arms over her chest, “First you stumble back into bed with Bea like it’s fucking 2005 again, or the summer of 2004, or the fall of 2006, or whatever. And now this.”

Raf bristles, standing to confront her. “My relationship with Bea is none of your goddamn business.”

“Oh, is it not?” Val shrieks, throwing her arms out, “Coulda fooled me. Every time she stomps her tiny little feet all over your heart, you pour it all over me, ‘Val, you’re her best friend, tell me what she’s thinking,’ ‘Val, don’t let me call her again.’ Yeah, you’re right, you’ve definitely never made that my problem.”

“I needed your help!” he cries, “I needed you! Things were fucking bad and I needed my sister. But you pushed me away and made me feel weak and stupid. You’re always pushing me away, Val! We found one thing to do together, the one thing that made us feel like brother and sister instead of enemies, and you threw it away! _Te necesité, me alejaste!”_

Val’s eyes widen. “No! No, you’re not bringing this up again! Do not do this to me again!” she begs desperately, “I gave you everything I could. I could not give you my whole life, not for this. For this? To live out of a bus, to see our parents once every four months? To never be able to settle and build a life somewhere? I gave you that time, Raf! I had no more time to give. You keep punishing me for it! How long will you sabotage my life to remind me of what you think I owe you?”

Raf nods, dangerously quiet, “Sabotage your life, huh?”

He takes a step closer until he’s looming over her.

“You know what’s truly sick, Val?” Raf spits, using his height as his only advantage in this virtueless fight, “You don’t even know which secret I told him.”


	9. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Language, avoidance tactics, Catholic guilt

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

Shawn stirs, rolling onto his stomach. He lifts his pillow over his head.

_Tap. Tap._

He sniffs and sighs. His pillow smells awful.

_Tap. Tap._

He makes a snorting sound as he sits up to investigate. The van is hot and sticky, so the windows are fogged. He blinks slowly, acclimating to his awakeness.

The tapping sound seems to have stopped for the moment. Instead it’s replaced by a slender shadow leaning into the window for a peek. Shawn’s heart stutters. He sits forward on his bench to slide the van door open.

In a blast of muggy air and the familiar scent of citrus, Val is there, holding a pebble in one hand and a soccer ball in the other, looking apologetic.

“Can we talk?”

She waits for him patiently as he changes into shorts and sneakers, keeping her eyes low and her shoulders hunched. She spent most of the evening trying to wrangle either Bea or Raf to determine what exactly was said to Shawn – it was Bea that finally cracked.

“You should talk to him,” Bea suggested breathlessly, laying a hand over Val’s. She was off in a hurry then, headed for her bunk to strategize so she could be ready when they arrived at the next stop.

She and Shawn walk in silence through the grounds in St. Petersburg, where they arrived caravan-style three hours ago. Shawn glances at the dim numbers on his tiny phone screen. It’s 2:14am. His heart sinks, remembering she can’t sleep without him.

“Cute stunt you pulled, with the pebble,” he mentions as they come up on a patch of grass under a street light, giving them enough illumination to kick the ball around.

Val swallows and attempts a shaky smile. “I figured I had to tread carefully after this morning.”

Shawn clears his throat and glances down at the scorched grass beneath them. He turns, hearing the thump of the ball hitting the ground.

“One on one?” she proposes, tossing her phone aside as she tips the ball in his direction.

He just nods, stopping the ball with his foot and nodding toward a fire hydrant several yards away. “That’s the other goal line.”

She agrees silently and starts skipping backwards on her toes as he jogs toward her, dribbling easily like he plays all the time even though he doesn’t – he’s mostly been watching her play recently.

They’re silent aside from their heavy breath for a few minutes, warming up, volleying back and forth. Neither of them seem all that interested in scoring on the other. Something about kicking the ball between them, jogging around, stealing the ball away and back and back again, it’s comforting. Hypnotic, almost.

Val is startled into tripping over her own feet a little when he speaks.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

His head is down – he’s concentrating on trying to toe the ball away from her. She lets it go so he can turn and head for her goal line. She jogs after him, prepared to let him score. He stops on a dime and turns just ahead of the fire hydrant. She almost smacks into his chest.

Val swallows. “It’s not supposed to matter.”

Shawn shakes his head incredulously, huffing, “Not supposed to. But it does.”

Val’s eyes slide shut. There it is.

The thing they’ve been dancing around, eyes shut and fingers tangled, avoiding together. It does matter to them, what happens when tour ends. They like to imagine it won’t, that they can pry apart and not each feel like they’ve somehow left something with the other, that they can continue on into the fall as planned.

“It matters,” Shawn restates weakly, kicking the ball to her.

Val stops it and makes a break for his goal line back the other way, scurrying quickly, hearing her pulse in her ears until she realizes he’s not following her. With the ball underfoot, she stops and turns to see him in the same spot with his hands on his hips.

“I think a part of me thought if I didn’t tell you about Oxford, neither of us would have to care what it meant.”

Shawn’s head lifts. He wanders toward the center of their little makeshift pitch. She follows his lead, leaving the ball behind.

“You’re going back to school,” Shawn states.

Val chews on her lower lip before answering, “I got into a very competitive art conservation program. I’ll be there for four years for my doctorate.”

Shawn blinks and in the fraction of a second his eyes are closed, he sees her bundled in a scarf, wisps of her hair (he imagines she’d wear it curly over there) floating in the misty weather as she walks along the river in a pair of sturdy boots. He’s not sure how exactly, because he’s only ever seen her in skinny jeans or tiny shorts and her vast collection of Vans, but this image feels completely… right. It’s almost painfully obvious.

“Yeah,” he breathes, overwhelmed by it for a moment, “That seems right.”

Val’s eyebrows lift. She’s not sure what he means but decides not to question it.

Shawn looks back down at her feet as they anxiously scuff the fraying grass.

“So that’s why you left Streets the first time. You want to be a conservator?”

Val bobs her head. “I wasn’t set on that path yet but I knew I wanted to go to school. I was always a little more academically inclined than Raf was. And I knew this wasn’t for me, this… the touring, the crowds, this life. It feels like… like maybe all this belongs to an older version of me. I wanted to come out this summer to be sure. I probably shouldn’t have – I think maybe I gave Raf some false hope.”

“He didn’t want you to leave,” Shawn infers.

“I mean, I’m sure that’s not a secret. I just don’t know if people realize how much that changed everything. I think I really broke his heart,” she whispers, her voice cracking subtly.

Shawn heaves a sigh, planting his hands on his hips, staring up at a cloudless, starless sky. Val follows his gaze.

“I’m sorry,” she continues, “Because I should’ve known better than to start something I can’t finish.”

Shawn looks back down. Her nose twitches. The gentle breeze has her ponytail wrapping around her arm. She waits for him to react somehow.

With a single nod of his head, he turns away and heads back in the direction of the van. When he glances back, he watches the ponytail flick back and forth as Val dribbles the ball, practicing her footwork in silence.

+

There’s nothing like a hometown show.

Streets of Gold fans are out in droves. Raf wears a Colombian flag around all day like cape and speaks almost exclusively in Spanish, leaving Val in his wake to translate. On stage, he has the vim and vigor of a frontman on his first day of Warped Tour instead of one nearly a month deep in cold showers, dank, sweaty t-shirts and dirt. So, so much dirt.

When Raf is distracted like this, he’s easier to deal with. He doesn’t get on Val’s case, he doesn’t cling to Bea quite as heavily (and Val can tell because when he doesn’t, Bea bounces along after Val instead). Despite the events of the last 24 hours, things seem… normal.

Shawn studies from afar. Even he can’t resist the temptation of catching a Streets hometown show. Instead of watching the set with a hand in Val’s back pocket, singing what are often her own words back into her ear, he keeps a safe distance and plants himself by the Blessthefall merch booth, avoiding the prying gaze of Alex Gaskarth from a booth or two away.

Shawn thinks it’s probably good that Val and Raf are spending the evening with their family in Coconut Grove. If they were at the barbecue, Shawn might not be able to stop himself from doing something particularly stupid like walking up behind her, shrugging her into his arms and whispering that he’s heard from his mum that Oxford is beautiful and maybe she’d like a roommate?

Because the number of times he’s imagined that since he first heard the word “Oxford” tumble out of Rafael’s godforsaken mouth is… startling.

He’s doing the moody lead singer thing, perching on the bumper of the van with his acoustic and a notebook, staring at the sunset. The boys have largely left him alone today, sensing a disturbance in the force, and they’ve been distracted by their own success at having a record number of people crowd around the Smartpunk stage for them today.

They’re celebrating the way Shawn should be, getting wasted on the beach.

All except one.

Seth props himself up next to Shawn, lifting the notebook into his lap to keep from sitting on it, but he knows better than to flip through it or he’ll have a swallow-emblazoned fist aimed at his nuts. Shawn ignores him for as long as he possibly can but Seth will not be ignored, especially when he’s staring straight at him, unblinking.

“Yes?” Shawn sighs wearily, looking up from his bruised and battered guitar.

Seth lifts his eyebrows. “Start talking, dude.”

Shawn’s jaw goes tense for a moment. And then it falls open.

He tells Seth everything – everything from Val and Bea and Raf, to Oxford, to the hotel night, to last night’s soccer date. It comes flying out of his mouth so easily in a way it wouldn’t when Shawn tried to sit and force it out in song. Seth listens to every word carefully, unflinchingly, taking it in.

Seth winces. “Yikes, dude. How long you been holding that in?”

Shawn nearly gasps for air at the end of his explanation. “Apparently too fucking long.”

Seth nods in agreement. “So… she’s leaving.”

A little piece of Shawn had hoped against hope that Seth would come out and say something inspiring like “love is love, it knows not of oceans or country borders, it can survive, follow your heart” or some bullshit. With his one weak statement, Shawn can see how it looks from the outside – hopeless.

“She’s leaving,” Shawn breathes, annoyed with his visceral reaction, the tears in his eyes, for the girl he’s known for a month.

“This is so stupid,” Shawn chokes, pressing his palms against his eyes as he shakes his head, “It’s only been a few fucking weeks.”

“No it hasn’t,” Seth chuckles. That veil of wisdom that Seth lets cover his words sometimes is unfurled. Shawn looks over.

“It hasn’t only been weeks. C’mon. You’ve loved Valentina Moreno since you bought your first Streets album, flipped open the insert and saw her name as writing credit on every song. Man, you’ve been singing her words for years. You’ve loved her just as long.”

Shawn’s chest feels like it’s caving in. Seth has a way of saying things sometimes in just the right way, a way that really just gets him. Shawn suffers through another breath.

“Yeah,” he rasps, “I guess you’re right.”

Shawn chews on the inside of his pillowy lips and feels the heat of Seth’s gaze. He keeps his eyes down at his dusty Chucks, feeling the rhythm he was chasing down start to sing through his blood. He sniffs.

“I think what you have to decide now,” Seth begins, sighing like he’s weighed down by his own ever-present wisdom, “Is if you love her enough.”

+

Valentina stands outside St. Ezequiel Catholic Church in her mother’s pearls and an old pair of stilettos. She decided to walk the few blocks from her house to the church – the suffering felt very Catholic.

She stalls. She glances down at her watch. Confession started 25 minutes ago, but she can’t get herself through the door. For one thing, Val hasn’t been inside a church since she was 12, the last time her grandparents visited from Bogota. She’s a little concerned she’ll burst into shameful flames the color of every one of the seven deadly sins.

But she needs to go in today. She’s been avoiding it. But today… there’s no more time.

_You just have to go in. Just go inside,_ she reasons with herself, _You can sit first and then when you’re ready, go into the confessional._

That’s enough motivation for now. She ascends the cement steps and walks inside. It’s dark and musty and the incense has her astral projecting back to the 90s which is just as unpleasant as it sounds. She dips her finger in the shell-shaped basin of holy water and makes the sign of the cross by memory, glancing around. For one thing, she’s over-fucking-dressed.

_Woops. No swearing in church. Not even in your head,_ she scolds herself.

She gulps like a cartoon character and barely remembers to genuflect before she slides in to sit in a pew.

They haven’t changed the missals or the pamphlet designs. There’s something comforting in that. And also very Catholic.

Val chances a glance at the confessional. It looks empty on the parishioner side, but there’s a light behind the closed door where the priest sits.

_Good,_ she thinks, _he’s ready when I am._

Val eases down onto her knees and feels her pencil skirt protest. She wonders absently if the toes of her Jimmy Choos are scuffing on the brick floor. She winces and folds her hands, fighting to quiet her mind.

She looks up. Above the altar is an almost over-colorful mural of a Latino Christ overlooking the congregation, hovering above them with open arms, a quiet smile and pierced, bleeding hands. Val sighs.

“You poor bastard,” she breathes.

She closes her eyes. She recites the Hail Mary a couple times, then the Our Father, but she’s always liked the Hail Mary better. She had an affinity for Mary growing up.

She sucks on her top row of teeth and feels her eyes fill. _Not anymore._

Five minutes pass. She calms herself down enough to wriggle to the confessional in her too-tight skirt. She closes the warped wooden door and sits.

“Hello, my child,” greets the priest in a thick Cuban accent.

“Forgive me father, for I have sinned,” Val chokes, “It’s been… many years since my last confession.”

The priest is silent. So is Val.

Apparently she’s silent for too long. He clears his throat to prompt her.

Val closes her eyes. She takes one long, slow, deep breath. She opens them.

She stands. She runs.

+

The Tour must roll on.

It’s their driver Hernan’s favorite thing to say when they hit a mid-tour rut, when the novelty is gone, when they feel sweaty no matter how many showers they take, when they’re all plotting to kill each other in their sleep.

And indeed it must go on. With radio silence from Shawn and an active avoidance of Bea and her brother, Val is left to focus on… her job.

She wakes up early every day and it’s easy because she doesn’t really sleep (not without him). She gets the booth set up by herself, unloads merch boxes with Greg and Naveen. She fields visits from the All Time Low boys, from Hayley and sometimes the NFG and Yellowcard guys. She checks out different sets, reminding herself why she’s here – the kids.

The kids never disappoint her, not even when they’re brats waiting in line or throwing change at her so they can catch the next set or signing. She sees familiar faces, the kids that treat Warped Tour like summer camp, showing up every day in a new city to follow the high. She doesn’t really get that, but a version of her used to.

She loves them, though. She loves the way they scream lyrics instead of sing them, the way they wear all black in the dead of summer, the dreamy looks on their faces when they’re so caught up in a performance the mud beneath their feet, the hundreds of people squashing them don’t even matter. She envies that. She misses it.

The Tour rolls on to Cleveland on August 2nd. Less than a month remains and with each passing day, she becomes less and less convinced Shawn will talk to her again. He’s kept busy by the boys and by his ever growing fanbase. It seems every time she passes Smartpunk, there are more and more kids gathered, singing his words back to him, giving him everything he’s ever wanted. They’ve outgrown the stage threefold, but the tour is too tightly scheduled to move them, so their audience swallows up every merch tent and signing table in its radius.

It’s glorious.

So she doesn’t go anywhere near him.

+

There are whispers about bad weather rolling in, but as of set-up time in the morning, the sky is light and overcast, nonthreatening. Val preps the tent as usual and bounces on her toes behind the table as she hands out change and slings t-shirts. The air feels charged, filled with the kind of energy people look back on after a big day and realize it was a warning sign.

The storm hits, and it’s worse than expected.

Shawn is getting food when the wind and rain picks up. It comes on suddenly, the way these things often do. Before long, the services staff is ushering them inside and things start to feel a little more serious.

“There are so many kids out there,” Shawn mutters, shaking his head as he watches some run for cover and some hustle inside to hide out with the growing mass of people. Seth hops up on his tiptoes to look over Francis’s head. He swears in agreement.

There’s paper everywhere, flying around in little tornados, kicking up smashed plastic water bottles and fallen flip flops. Shawn winces when a tree branch comes down, narrowly missing a merch tent that’s fighting to stay pinned into the ground.

There’s a commotion behind them. Shawn, squashed between dozens of people now, is tall enough to look over some heads. He spots the Streets band and crew. All but one.

Raf somehow feels Shawn’s eyes and meets them frantically.

“Val was at the tent!” he cries over the chatter around them.

Seth watches Shawn take off like a shot, slicing through twenty or so people to get to the door, wrench it open, and sprint out. He flattens his lips into a firm smile and nods in understanding.

But Shawn is long gone. He crosses yards like feet, using the full length of his legs to charge toward where he spotted the Streets tent on the venue map this morning.

His mind is blank – it ignores the messages his body screams. It doesn’t register the lashing of rain against his face or the sudden tearing and overuse of cold muscles in every inch of his body. It only barely registers the flipping merch table that he leaps over like Indiana fucking Jones because it would slow him down and he can’t slow down.

He rips up the hill past groups of teenagers huddled under trees and crouching behind sturdier merch tables. As he runs past the amphitheater housing the main stage, he hears a mixture of terrible screams and adrenaline-pumped cries of wonder as the backdrop for Alkaline Trio’s set tears away and slaps itself in the wind. He keeps going.

The problem is he can’t really see. As he nears what he thinks was the tent’s location, he slows to a jog, squinting into the sideways rain to try to make out lettering on what’s left of merch tables and tents. Just as he’s about to give up and make a run for her bus to see if she’s there, he spots her.

She’s kneeling beside her tent shoving the table skirt into an enormous plastic box. Her brow is furrowed, her hair is wild and swinging around her face. She looks entirely unbothered by the idea of her own safety, merely annoyed that the storm is interrupting her day.

Shawn’s heart squashes into his ribs like it’s trying to peek through them and see her for itself. He grunts and follows its direction, hurrying up to grab her arm.

She looks shocked to see him, which hurts a little but not enough to focus on right now. He tries to pull her to her feet but she stays put.

“What the fuck are you doing? We have to go!” he cries, barely audible over the howling wind.

Val opens her mouth and a crack of thunder covers her words, proving Shawn’s point. He pulls at her harder.

“This shit’s going to be ruined! I’m not afraid of rain, Shawn, I’m from Miami!” she yells back petulantly.

Shawn is half a heartbeat away from slinging her over his shoulder like a fireman and hauling her back to her bus himself but the weather beats him to the punch and gives them pebble sized hail to contend with.

“Dammit!” Val cries, finally relenting. She stands, hunched with her arms over her head and leads the way to her bus at a clip that could rival Shawn’s.

Shawn’s glad she knows where she’s going because he can’t see shit. He doesn’t see the bus until they’re almost on top of it and by that time, the hail has grown to the size of ping pong balls.

Val throws the door open and jumps inside, whirling around when Shawn slams it behind them. To his surprise, he has to catch her by the arms as she lurches toward it like she’s trying to leave again.

“Where’s my brother? Where’s my band?” she cries, ready to Wonder Woman herself to get to them. Shawn holds her fast.

“They’re all fine. They’re inside by the main gate. Your band and crew and mine. I saw them,” he pants, willing her to look from the door into his eyes. She does and softens.

“Jesus Christ,” Val breathes, sagging in his grasp, closing her eyes for a moment.

Shawn swallows and looks around. The bus is empty. He drops his hands from around her biceps and lifts his eyebrows.

“Not afraid of rain, Moreno?”

Her eyebrows pull in as she frowns at him and crosses her arms over her dripping t-shirt. “Well it was just fucking rain until you brought the hail with you.”

Shawn snorts. “Sure. I brought the hail. Like I’m fuckin’ Snow Miser.”

Val rolls her eyes and chuckles, dropping her arms. She plops onto the leather couch with a squelch and winces.

“Ew.”

Shawn grins and offers her a hand. “You’re gross.”

Val stands and waits for him to drop her hand. He doesn’t.

+

Val rifles through Raf’s stuff for passably clean sweats and a t-shirt for Shawn because the bus starts to feel really cold with the AC inside and the drop in temperature outside. They dry off and change, using the bathroom in turns, and regroup in the front lounge to watch the storm batter the bus.

“God, I hope no one gets hurt,” Val whispers, curling up against the arm of the sofa with her chin perched on the windowsill.

Shawn sits beside her, absently dropping a throw pillow over her bare feet because he knows they get cold.

“It looked like venue security had a pretty good handle on it. The amphitheater is mostly covered, too.”

Val nods, staring out the window. Shawn watches her long lashes lift and close, watches her fingers beat out a rhythm against the leather like every drummer he’s ever known. He watches as her hair starts to dry into curls against her back.

“I’ve missed you,” he hears himself say.

It gets her attention. Her warm, dry lips part. He licks his.

“Missed you too,” she replies.

Shawn reaches out with cold fingers and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “Want to drive with me to Camden tonight?”

“Yes please.”

+

Shawn willfully ignores all the questioning looks he gets from his band and crew when Val arrives with a backpack and a kiss on his cheek for the overnight drive.

The storm stopped not too long after it started. A few people had minor injuries, but no one, tour members or tour-goers, was seriously hurt, and for that everyone was grateful. The rest of the afternoon was spent plucking tents out of trees and chasing down errant folding chairs. A lot of the kids stayed to help their favorite bands and crews clean up. It was kind of nice.

But the Tour must roll on.

They’re due in Camden, New Jersey tomorrow and it’s an eight hour drive. As it happens, it’s Shawn’s turn to make the overnight voyage. He sleeps through the barbecue in preparation so Val stashes some food for him and makes him a thermos full of coffee on her bus (the good Colombian Volcanica stuff).

As Val settles into the passenger seat passing out cold empanadas her mom sent her back to tour with after the Miami stop, Francis lingers by Shawn, watching him load the last merch box back into the trunk. Shawn ignores him as long as he can until Francis is basically stepping on his toes, he’s standing so close.

Shawn sighs and flicks his tongue at his lip ring. “What?”

“Nothing,” Francis insists.

“Fuck off,” Shawn grumbles.

“No, but really, she brought us snacks. What’s… going on?” Francis chuckles, his eyes going wide like he plans to absorb the gossip through them.

Shawn really hates that he doesn’t have an answer. He shrugs weakly, averting his eyes.

Francis shakes his head, claps Shawn on the shoulder. “Dude.”

He saunters away, settling into his van bench for the evening. Shawn sniffs, scuffs his shoe against the pavement and lifts a hand to straighten his backwards Leafs hat. He allows himself one deep sigh before tucking himself into the front seat beside her and starting the engine.

+

The I-76 is a long, quiet road this time of night. The boys have gone to sleep in the back in a chorus of snores and mid-sleep mumbles. Shawn keeps his eyes on the road and snacks on the empanadas she hid for him, groaning after every bite.

“These are so fucking good,” he mumbles, licking some spice off his lips before diving in for another. Val giggles.

“They’re the only reason I go home anymore,” she sighs.

Shawn glances over. “You’re not close with your parents?”

She shrugs. “Not particularly. I love them, they’ve given me everything I’ve ever needed and most of the things I’ve ever wanted, but when Raf and I started down this path, they couldn’t understand it. They’ve… never actually seen a Streets show.”

Shawn’s eyebrows lift and his jaw stills mid-chew. “Really?”

“Nope. They wanted it to be a phase we grew out of.”

Shawn swallows and refocuses on the road as they pass signs for Pittsburgh. “Well, they must be happy about Oxford then.”

Val picks at her cuticles. “They’re pleased.”

Shawn jams another half an empanada in his mouth. Val watches with a flat smile.

“What about your parents?” Val hums, looking for a pivot.

“They’re kinda psyched, actually,” he answers proudly, trying to tamp down a goofy smile at the thought of his family. He glances over for her reaction. If she’s disappointed to hear about the difference between her family and his, she doesn’t show it.

“They’ve been waiting for me to find this for a while,” he explains, “I bounced around between different bands, and it was never right. I felt like the only one taking it seriously. And then Seth and Francis found me through a friend. First day I sat down with them I think I knew it.”

Val smiles wistfully. “That’s a good feeling.”

“The best,” he agrees, “I wish everyone could feel that, whatever they’re doing. Everyone deserves that kind of… security, I guess. That they’re in the right place doing what they’re meant to do.”

Val sinks her teeth into her bottom lip thoughtfully, feeling like her heart is sliding sideways in her chest just to be closer to him. She settles her cheek against the headrest and turns to watch him.

He looks tired. His hair is frizzy and his eyes look a little cold and his muscles are tense. She wonders if he’s been getting as little sleep as she has.

“It’s a lot though,” she breathes.

Shawn’s lips twitch. “Yeah.”

It’s quiet for a few moments while Val collects her words.

“The first time we headlined a show larger than a basement was in Toronto, did you know that?”

Shawn looks surprised. Val grins at the memory.

“Raf threw up for about an hour straight before the start. It was the first stop of our tour after releasing Two Sides to Every Story. We were such a fucking wreck. I broke like three pairs of sticks I was playing so hard. We were all so, so desperate to keep these people in front of us, to make them love us. We needed them so bad. We didn’t actually figure out the secret for months, nearly at the end of the tour.”

Shawn blinks. “What secret?”

“That they’re not there to see you play harder than you’ve ever played, or sing better than you’ve ever sung. They already came to the gig for you, you already have them. They’re there to be with you, just for a night. They found you, they love you. You bring them hope every time you get up there and do what you do. You don’t need to do it any better. You’ve already helped.”

Shawn feels a well that’s been building since they released Joy Ride. It’s been filling and filling and he can’t find the bottom anymore. It’s a cloudy mixture of crippling fear, anxiety, adrenaline, pride, excitement and fucking exhaustion. Val shines a light straight through it.

He turns his head to find the warmth of her big brown eyes. Val remembers what the bottom looks like. She’s been there.

“What happens now?” he croaks.

“Now you stay on the ride. That’s all.”

Shawn lowers his eyes until he feels her fingers curl around his cheek. It warms under her hand before he turns his head to plant a kiss on her palm. He takes her hand in his and holds it in his lap for a few minutes until she speaks again.

“Made you something.”

He’s reluctant to let her hand go again because his blood pressure feels normal again when he’s touching her but he releases her to root around in the backpack at her feet.

She holds up a plastic CD case with a shy smile.

“Did you make me a mix?” he laughs with delight.

“Shush, this is what scene kids do when they feel things.”

Shawn giggles and goes pink all over, rubbing his free hand against his neck. When the first song begins, he looks over with a smile.

“Sugar We’re Goin’ Down. Subtle choice,” he jokes.

“Shhhh, it’s against my religion to talk while Patrick Stump sings.”

He looks over to see her eyes shut and lips spread in a grin. He laughs and bobs his head reverently.

Fifteen minutes in, Val’s asleep. He’s too curious to help it, so he checks the track listing she wrote out in her serial killer handwriting on the plastic on the back.

_Sugar We’re Goin’ Down - Fall Out Boy_

_The Girl’s a Straight-Up Hustler - All Time Low_

_Only One - Yellowcard_

_Miami - Taking Back Sunday_

_On Top of the World - Boys Like Girls_

_The Future Freaks Me Out - Motion City Soundtrack_

_It’s Not Your Fault - New Found Glory_

_Punk Rock Princess - Something Corporate_

_Lying is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off - Panic! At the Disco_

_Jump - Simple Plan_

He sighs and puts the case in the center console, reaching over to leave his hand on her knee in case that helps her stay asleep longer. He mouths along with Ryan Key’s words, staring out the windshield.

_There’s just no one that gets me like you do, you are my only, my only one._

+

Hayley stuffs her vibrant, telltale hair under her Streets beanie and snarls teasingly at Val’s laughter.

“You are so not getting away with this,” Val snorts, trailing beside her toward the Lucky 13 main stage to catch New Found Glory’s 4pm set, the highlight of the day.

“It’ll be fine,” Hayley insists, eyes shifting as the crowd around them thickens.

“You’ll be spotted in the next five minutes, I’d put money on it.”

Hayley scoffs. “Stop it. You said you wanted to come with me.”

“Yeah! Because you’re 5’2” and 100 pounds soaking wet. You need a fuckin’ bodyguard,” Val argues, slinging an arm around her petite friend.

“Chad… said I should come today,” Hayley mumbles.

Val’s eyes go wide. “Chad? Asked you to come watch the set?”

“Well… like… not exactly. He said I should come “check it out,” whatever the fuck that means.”

Val coos. “That is so sweet. I’m so glad I get to witness this. Can we go sidestage after so you can blush down at your feet and tell him he plays guitar real good?”

“Ok, we’re done talking about this now!” Hayley squeaks earnestly. Val pins her lips shut and mimes zipping them, sniggering through flared nostrils.

They filter in toward the back of the crowd that’s been planted at main stage all day. New Found Glory is one of the sets to catch on Warped – full of relentless energy from a band that’s been around the block and knows how to put on a stunning show.

Val’s only caught them a few times over the course of Warped, and only from sidestage with Bea. Being in the crowd with the kids, screaming the words and passing sweaty crowdsurfing teenagers over her head is the real way to experience a pop punk show. So when Hayley invited her along, she leapt at the chance.

By some miracle, Hayley stays under the radar. She and Val bop along, dancing and singing and flinging their hands in the air and Val connects with a version of herself she hasn’t seen in a while, a girl that can name every Green Day song ever produced, a girl that lived every day just to get home and hit her drums, a girl for whom music changed everything.

She’s letting the final chords of Better Off Dead carry her off, tilting her head back, eyes closed and smiling at the sky when it starts.

“Hey!” Hayley calls from behind her, smashed up into her shoulder, “Val, I think–”

They didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late. The yahoos surrounding them have drawn the crowd out, dragging people to face each other to leave space between them. Val recognizes a wall of death when she sees one. She grabs Hayley’s hand and yanks her, trying to drag them out from the line of fire, but they’re shoved back into place.

“Let us out!” she cries, feeling it build, feeling the energy of the morons pinning them in start to fizzle dangerously.

“Hayley!” Val shrieks, reaching out for her elbow for a sturdier grasp. She can’t get there, and the tension snaps. Teenagers sprint into each other at full speed, shoving and pushing and knocking into each other.

Val squints under some guy’s arm to see Hayley’s beanie get knocked off. The cocktail of red and orange dye is the last thing she sees before everything goes dark.


	10. Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Language, NSFW, triggering content (miscarriage, mention of abortion)

Bea fidgets. She glances at the phone in her lap, at Raf, and back at the phone.

“C’mon, you have to let me talk to him,” Bea pleads.

Raf is chewing on his thumbnail and staring blankly at the tiled floor. He sighs, drops his finger from his mouth and shrugs.

“Yeah, fine. Whatever.”

Bea bolts up from the chair and speedwalks down the hall with Val’s buzzing phone. When she reaches the doors, she pushes through to the quickly cooling evening and answers.

“Shawn?”

“Hey– wait, who is this?”

“It’s Bea. Don’t freak out. Val’s in the hospital.”

He freaks the fuck out.

Shawn bounces out of his folding chair, catching the attention of his bandmates. He fists a hand into his hair and feels his legs go a little numb.

“What?! What happened?! Where? Is she ok?” he cries. Now everyone from a few surrounding tents is watching them. Shawn doesn’t notice.

“She’s gonna be fine, but she has a concussion. She’ll want to see you. You should come over here.”

Shawn burns serious rubber to get to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, flinging himself out of the driver side and leaving Seth to actually put the van into park.

Once he’s inside the building, he’s calmer, but only by sheer force of will because he’s pretty sure he’ll get tackled by security if he goes screeching around the emergency room calling out her name. So he bottles up and stalks around looking for a sign of Bea and Raf.

He spots Bea first due to the technicolor spiky scene girl hair. He makes a bee line for her and plants himself at her side.

“What happened?”

“Shawn, hey,” Bea breathes, resting a tiny hand on his arm, “Raf is just–”

“C’mon, Bea, tell me what happened,” Shawn pleads.

Bea pinches her lips together before she speaks. “She and Hayley went to the NFG set. Some idiots started a wall of death and she and Hayley tried to bail but they pinned them in. Hayley said Val tried to pull them out, but she got decked in the head pretty hard.”

Shawn winces and plants his hands on his hips, tossing his head back. “Fuck.”

“She’s ok. She does have a concussion and they’re antsy because the hit knocked her out and it took her a little longer to come to than they would’ve liked. They’re taking her down for a CT in a few minutes.”

“How long was she out?” Shawn pants. Seth, having dealt with the van, comes scurrying up behind him, keeping a safe distance, just to supervise.

Bea releases an unsteady breath. “Until they were almost at the hospital. Hayley came with her. She only just left. She was pretty shaken up.”

Shawn swallows. He rubs harshly at the back of his neck. “Where’s Raf?”

“Filling out insurance stuff. He just got off the phone with their parents. I think Miguel might fly up just to be around for a couple days.”

Shawn blinks. “She’s not leaving tour?”

The smirk that’s always made him uncomfortable crosses Bea’s face. “She’s Val. She’s not going anywhere unless it’s in a body bag.”

Shawn bites down on a snipe about her sense of humor. Instead, he glances back at Seth and then ahead at the door.

“Can I go in?” Shawn murmurs, gazing at it longingly.

“Go ahead,” Bea replies, stepping aside.

Shawn tiptoes to the door and opens it as quietly as possible. The lights are dimmed low, probably to keep from aggravating her headache. Val is in a hospital gown, lying with her hands in her lap, breathing slowly. When he steps closer, he sees her eyes wide open like she’s counting tiles on the ceiling.

“Vally?”

She turns her head slowly and offers a sleepy smile. “Hey, papi.”

Shawn melts into a chair at her side, falling all over her to kiss her shoulders, avoiding her tender head. She smiles at his thoughtfulness, curling her fingers into his hair as he rests his head on her chest.

“Scared the living shit out of me,” he scolds weakly.

“Scared it out of me, too. Who the fuck starts a wall of death at an NFG set anyway?”

Her voice is craggy and very quiet. He lowers his to match it.

“I’m so sorry, honey. You must’ve been so scared.”

Val’s eyelids flutter. “It happened fast. I think Hayley was more scared than I was. And then… then I took a while to wake up. She was probably freaking out.”

She sounds guilty. He wants to climb inside her brain and pull that piece out, toss it away. She shouldn’t feel anything but healing right now. He squeezes her hand, nuzzles his cheek against her chest.

“I’ll check on her later,” he promises. That seems to soothe her.

“How… are you feeling?” he whispers.

“‘M ok. They’re taking me down for a scan in a minute. And… they want to keep me overnight for observation.”

“Will they let me stay with you?”

“No, baby, you’re not family,” she sighs, carding her fingers through his curls. He closes his eyes.

“But you can’t sleep without me.”

Val’s heart kickdrums in her chest. “Opiates might be the only thing strong enough to replace you, Mendes.”

Shawn smiles, turning his face down to kiss her sternum. They’re quiet for a few moments, the only sounds the humming of equipment and the sound of their skin scraping as their fingers tangle and untangle.

“Is Bea still out there?”

He nods.

“Mmm. Kicked Raf out earlier. He was thinking too loud.”

Shawn smirks at the idea of their twin telepathy and kisses her again.

“He loves you,” Shawn points out.

“He does, _dios lo bendiga._ ”

Before long, the interns come in and pry him away to wheel her down to radiology. Shawn wanders around for a cup of hot, sludgy vending machine coffee and comes back to wait around the corner from Val’s room closer to the door so he can see her come in first.

He tilts his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. Seth mercifully remains silent and unobtrusive, ready to be chauffeur, shoulder, punching bag, or whatever he needs. He doesn’t have the energy to speak, but he thinks Seth knows he’s grateful. Seth always knows everything.

As Shawn fights to quiet his racing mind, he hears voices he recognizes from down the perpendicular hall and come to a stop around the corner, in the seats outside Val’s room.

“… but they said it just happens sometimes, that’s why they’re doing the scan, just to make sure. I specifically asked.” Shawn recognizes it as Raf’s voice.

“I think I’m being a little hysterical,” Bea admits in a voice that sounds small to Shawn.

“I get it. I thought the same thing.”

It’s quiet for a few charged moments. Then Bea speaks.

“I still have… some guilt about it.”

“About not being there?”

“She must’ve been so scared.” Her voice breaks. Shawn hears an echo from his own words minutes earlier and feels a sudden tenderness for Bea that wasn’t there before.

Raf’s voice is rough. “Sam was there. He took care of her.”

“It’s not the same. She needed me. She needed her best friend. She miscarried a five month old child with a name and a due date and a life he didn’t get to have. And I was on fucking tour.”

Shawn doesn’t hear Bea break down into long-awaited tears, if Raf responds, or if Bea continues, or if the goddamn building blows up around him. He stands, feels his knees give out, and sits again.

In moments like these, you expect dots to connect – the _ah, it all makes sense now moment._ His mind races through the last month and a half, looking for something, searching for puzzle pieces she may have left for him. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for exactly – quiet moments of despair, mentions of a desire for a family, a crumpled old sonogram hidden under a pillowcase. He comes up completely dry. Shawn had no dots to connect, and now he has a bomb in his lap.

Val was going to be a mother and he knew nothing about it. He doesn’t feel the disappointment and betrayal of her secret about Oxford now. All he feels is embarrassment.

How could he not have known? How could he not have figured out there was something like this she was recovering from? How could he imagine himself to be in love with her and not know the worst thing that’s ever happened to her?

Shawn’s eyes fill. He slumps in the chair. Seth pulls at the sleeve of his shirt, tugging at him until he stands on bambi legs and is dragged back to the van, away to the venue to lie face up on his bench, awake all night imagining a baby with a stranger’s eyes and Val’s smile.

+

When Val wakes up, it’s dark. She doesn’t actually have a way to tell what time it is and the person with their head pressed up against her leg is asleep.

She carefully sits up and notices her headache really doesn’t feel any better, but she didn’t expect it to. The doctors confirmed after her scan she hasn’t done any major damage, but they insist on keeping her overnight anyway, despite her pouting.

She looks down at the tiny, bony creature huddled against her hip and sighs. After a traumatic experience is as good a time as any to ruin a friendship.

She pokes the crown of Bea’s pink and blue head. “Hey.”

Her voice sounds awful. She clears her throat and winces at the vibration in her head. She tilts it back on the cool pillow with a moan.

“You ok?” Bea mumbles blearily, lifting her head to prop her chin on Val’s waist. Val nods.

“What time is it?”

Bea closes one eye and checks the screen of her LG Chocolate. “Almost 2am.”

“Mmm. Shawn left?” Val hums, closing her eyes.

“Seth told me they had an early bus call. He took him back to the venue. Think they’re in Uniondale by now.”

Val is satisfied with that. She imagines Shawn facedown on his peeling leather bench breathing into his gross pillow, completely unbothered. She likes that image.

“Raf?” Val yawns.

“Sprawled out over three or four chairs outside, last time I checked,” Bea chuckles, nosing affectionately at Val through her blanket.

“Wait, how are you here? You’re not family.”

Bea’s enormous eyes open. “Told them I was your sister in law.”

She holds up her left hand and shows off Raf’s ring, once her grandfather’s, the one Raf always wears on his right pinky. Val’s eyes shut again.

“It’s time to talk, Bea.”

Bea’s eyes lift from the knit of Val’s blanket. Val looks serene and, if she hadn’t just spoken, Bea would assume she’d fallen back asleep.

“Hmm?”

“We used to talk,” breathes Val, “We used to confront each other, check in, we used to be so honest. Sometimes we were so honest we hurt each other, but I think the honesty itself meant we could get through it. When did we stop talking?”

Bea bites into her lower lip. “Probably after the second time I ended it with Raf.”

Val’s eyes open but remain trained on the ceiling. “Yeah. I think you’re right.”

“I have apologized,” Bea points out, “For every time I’ve hurt him, I’ve apologized. I’ve… Val, you know I’ve never meant to.”

Val smoothes a hand through Bea’s hair, still unblinking. “I know. You’re not malicious, Bea, you’re just stupid.”

Bea’s breath stops short in her chest. “I– I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be.”

“You don’t,” Val replies calmly, “You’ve been hurt. You’ve been left behind so many times by so many people who you built your whole world around. I’ve been there for some of that. But the thing that you do that sucks is you wait around for Rafael to do the same thing to him. You wait for him to construct the castle for you, brick by perfect brick, being everything you’ve ever asked him to be, and you kick down the walls and run out. Why is that? Is it self-preservation? Is it vengeful? Do you get back at the universe for fucking you by fucking someone else?”

Bea turns her face into Val’s hip and lets out a sob. “I don’t know. I don’t know what it is. It feels so good to know I can walk away, to prove to myself I can be ok without him. For all the times I wasn’t, it’s so good to know I can do it now.”

“But you keep coming back.”

“I try to stop. I fuck around with other people. I think… I think I let myself believe it was ok if he was willing. Fuck, he’s not just willing, Val, he begs for me. Do you know how good that feels?”

“He loves you, Beatrice,” Val snaps.

Bea’s sharp sobbing breaths go silent for a few seconds too long. Val turns her head. Bea’s eyes are shut, squeezing so hard that her heavy eye makeup squirts in streams down her cheeks. Her face is red. Her small body shakes as it holds itself together. Val rubs a thumb down her cheek.

“I have to go, don’t I?” Bea whispers. It’s garbled and waterlogged and if Val wasn’t someone with whom Bea had already shared everything, every piece of her, she might not have been able to make it out.

“Yes, you do.”

Bea sags. Her tense body goes soft and pliant against the mattress that holds her up. She sniffles, swipes at her cheeks for a few seconds. Eventually, she sits up and straightens her shredded denim jacket.

“Better that I go now, while he’s asleep. I’ll uhm,” she chokes on a shuddering breath, “I’ll just scoot upstate to get my stuff, let the boys know. I can probably get Sherry to sub in for me; her tour in Europe ended last weekend. She’ll want the cash.”

Val is silent. Her hand is outstretched where it fell from Bea’s hair when she stood. Bea stares at it for a moment or two.

“Maybe I’ll try to call in a few months, if I find myself over and about in the UK. If you’d let me. Do… do you think you’d let me?”

Before Bea can finish the question, Val is nodding. “Give me a few months. We’re gonna be ok.”

Bea gasps an inhale, nodding as she backs out of the room.

Val closes her eyes again.

_One down._

+

Shawn’s body is in Uniondale, New York. His head is somewhere else entirely.

Alex notices that before he even gets within ten feet of him. The next thing he notices is how damn tall he is. Alex himself is very tall, but gangly and stringy next to this Clark Kent-looking thing. He tries not to let that get to him as he ambles up beside him to look over the hill at set up.

Shawn glances over and looks surprised to see him, which Alex supposes he was expecting. He offers a polite bob of his head and a flat smile as an “I come in peace” gesture. Shawn’s shoulders shrink down an inch.

“How is she?” Alex hums.

Shawn licks his lips. “Took a pretty good hit to the head and she was out for a while. It made the doctors nervous so they kept her overnight. She’s fine, though. She’s… you know, she’s tough.”

Alex nods, glances down at the Solo cup in his hand before he sips at it. He makes a face that illustrates immediate regret. It gives Shawn a much-needed chuckle. Alex ditches the cup in a trash can nearby and shoves his hands in the front pockets of his women’s section jeans.

“Can I ask you something, man?” Shawn rasps, clearing his throat. Alex shrugs.

“How do you… I mean, how does all this work with… someone? Like, I mean, the long distance thing. It’s hard, right? When they’re not on the road with you?”

Alex swallows. “It’s so fucking hard, dude. And it’s… well, my working theory is it’s just not possible for everybody, y’know? I mean that forcing it, trying your hardest, it can only get you so far. The effort can be there, but if it’s not right, I don’t think it can always work.”

Shawn finds as his gut rolls that it’s not what he wants to hear.

“And you don’t know if it’s going to work until you try,” Shawn concludes. Alex nods.

“Yeah, unfortunately. And then it’s either ok and super fucking hard or your life feels like it goes up in flames. The choices aren’t great.”

Shawn keeps his eyes focused on the hot blue horizon. He bobs his head and bounces his knee, releasing some nervous energy. Alex watches the poor kid vibrate.

“And… I mean, down the road… do you think you’re gonna have a family and still do this? I can’t imagine that. How does anyone do that?” Shawn rants.

Alex’s face goes blank.

_Fuck. He knows._

He’s not sure why he’s suddenly so gut-fucking-certain, but Shawn definitely knows. Maybe Val told him. God, he hopes Val told him. But something about this moment with him feels like that’s not what happened.

“I don’t know,” Alex answers honestly, “I don’t know what I’m gonna want. I mean, I think I want kids, yeah, but… I can’t imagine my life without this. I can’t imagine being happy without this. I know people say kids change everything, but. I dunno. Hard to imagine it gets better than this.”

Shawn tips his head back. Alex’s Britishness comes to the surface, forcing him to look away and ignore the tears streaming out of the corners of Shawn’s eyes. He coughs awkwardly and reaches out to squeeze his shoulder, shuffling away quietly.

As he goes, Alex feels a familiar stirring in his brain as some words rise to the surface. He gathers them up and studies them as he walks, wondering where they could take him.

_Dedication takes a lifetime, but dreams only last for a night…_

+

Val’s eyes open again, and this time the cold blue light of dawn is coming in from the cracks of window uncovered by the blinds. The pain in her head has dulled slightly. She sits up and squints at the figure hunched in the chair across from her bed.

“Hey, kid,” Raf greets. Val’s smile is an old one, one Raf’s known for as long as he’s known Val.

“Come over here,” Val invites, nodding at the chair.

Raf stands, slides his phone back into his pocket with one hand and straightens his backwards cap with the other. He ambles over to sit beside his sister, taking her hand when she offers it.

“Bea is gone, Raf.”

Raf chews on his cheek, staring down at Val’s hand. “I figured.”

“I don’t think she’s coming back.”

Raf sits back, managing to lift his gaze. Val looks unapologetic. “I don’t think so.”

Val doesn’t need to tell Raf about her midnight confrontation. Raf knows. And unlike the times before when Bea left without a trace, he feels the finality of it. It sits in his chest like a weight on his heart. He struggles to breathe around it. He thumbs over Val’s knuckles to distract himself.

“Do you know what I’m looking forward to?” Val asks, her voice clear and at a normal volume for the first time since before the NFG set. Raf’s eyebrows raise.

“I’m looking forward to the first Christmas we get to have back in Miami with our families. Mamá making tamales and hot chocolate, putting too much chili in it so we’re all coughing and spitting it out behind her back, papá playing The Ramones on the record player over the Christmas radio station and trying to tell us this is what real punk music is like.”

Raf chuckles and gets carried away in the imagery.

“And you’d have your family and I’d have mine. And our kids will probably fight like cats and dogs and try to push each other into the tree or something. And that will be our biggest problem with each other, not this.”

Raf looks up. Val is looking back, unflinching.

“I know you wanted this version of forever for us. You wanted us on buses and private planes and wearing matching in-ears and counting down the countries we’ve got left to visit. I know you probably see us young forever. And I think…” Val trails off with a warm smile, “I think you will be. You’ve never grown up a day in your life, I don’t expect you to start any time soon.”

Raf doesn’t hear the words as accusation, as the thing he’s dreaded from his sister for as long as he can remember. He doesn’t hear smugness or condescension. He doesn’t have flashbacks to Val’s report cards boasting grades an entire letter higher than every one of his. He doesn’t think about the look on her face when he announced definitively he wasn’t going to college. He doesn’t see his mother in her right now, he only sees her, his twin sister, the woman who knows him best.

“I’m trying not to,” he jokes, feeling his breath go a little short as the emotion creeps up on him.

“I tried to be like you,” she confesses, eyes going wide and pleading, “I really did. I wanted so badly to be as cool as you. You didn’t care about school. You never gave a fuck about what mom and dad thought. You knew the moment you picked up your first guitar what you were meant for. God, I envied that. You were always going to be a fucking rockstar. I just… I wanted to keep up. I thought I could keep up. I never meant to hurt you by leaving, to make you feel like your dream wasn’t good enough for me. The problem was it wasn’t mine.

“I wondered for a while if I did the right thing. I wasn’t actually really sure, I think, until I miscarried. That was when I got closest to my dream. That was the closest I came to finally understanding you and your certainty in yourself and your path.”

Raf leans forward, wrapping both his hands around hers. As he opens his mouth, she shakes her head.

“Don’t, I… this isn’t about him right now. It’s about us. It’s about knowing that our differences are what make us so great for each other at the end of the day. I need you, Rafael, I need you all day every day and I’m gonna miss the shit out of you at Oxford but it’ll be ok because I’m always going to have you close somehow. And then when that first Christmas rolls around, we’ll get to sit back and look at it all together, you and me, and know we did the right thing.”

Raf closes his eyes. His long lashes are wet against his cheeks. He sighs.

“Goddamn, Valentina, you really do always have to be the smartest one in the room, huh?”

Val giggles, squeezing his fingers between hers. His heart swells immeasurably.

“I’m glad you came this summer. I’m glad you stuck it out one last time for me. I think you are too, yeah?” he asks.

Val settles back against her pillow and sighs. “Maybe. I’m not sure yet.”

“Because it might depend on how bad you miss him when you’re in Oxford and he’s touring clubs?”

“The truth is, though, I’m better off for having known him, I think. I’m not sure if he loves me or not. But I do know that I love him. And I think any time we get to love someone, whether or not it’s returned, whether or not it ends badly, we’re better off for it.”

+

Val settles her cheek against the cool pillow with a deep sigh. She breathes slowly, focuses her energy into relaxing each of her tired muscles, imagines her ligaments and tendons unraveling from their knots and melting into the softness of the hotel mattress. This is the kind of breathing Bea taught her when she was having anxiety before shows when she was touring with Streets. It comes in handy still when she gets especially wrapped up in herself and needs a reprieve.

It’s another hotel night, this time in Montreal. It’s been a few days since she caught up with the tour in New Jersey after she was released from the hospital with a warning not to get caught up in any more mosh pits for the rest of tour. Beyond that, though, she’d be absolutely fine. She hasn’t seen much of Shawn – he’s been all but swept away by the rush of Forefront suddenly becoming _the_ band on Warped 2007. To harness the energy around the boys, their label and the tour have organized more signings, acoustic sets and interviews with dinky music blogs, all of which suck up his time. She steals him for quick kisses and whispered promises of tonight, the hotel night.

She’s alone for now in a thrift store men’s plaid shirt and boyshorts, willing herself to become one with the bedsheets while he finishes up a signing before he can slip away to join her. From here, she can admire the lights outside the window that go blurry as her vision loses focus and she dips into a light sleep.

Shawn gets his keycard from the desk downstairs, blushing furiously when the woman tells him his “wife” has already checked in. He lets himself into the modest room and drops his backpack by the door, opening his mouth to speak when he sees her draped over the bed, settled on her side, fast asleep.

Shawn pulls his lips into his mouth to chew on them thoughtfully as he takes her in. Her long legs look as soft and dark as brown sugar against the white sheets. Her hands are tucked up under the pillow and there’s a little furrow in her brow that he wants to smooth out with a fingertip and maybe it’ll take all her worries with it. But Shawn knows a little more about Val now after what he overheard last week and knows no matter how sweet and tender he is with her, she’s faced things she’ll likely never forget.

He starts to make a little light noise to wake her up enough that she won’t panic when he crawls into bed with her. He kicks off his sneakers and shucks his jeans into a pile by the bed, watching as she stirs. He settles in behind her, wrapping an arm around her waist and humming quietly as he buries his face in her hair.

“Mmmm, hey papi,” she whispers, throat clogged with sleep, as she lifts a hand to tangle in the back of his curls.

He smiles into her neck and nestles closer when she shivers. “I like it when you call me that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. ‘S kinda sexy.”

“Good,” she coos, turning in his grasp to brush her nose over his and open her heavy eyes.

Shawn slots a leg between hers and drags a hand up under her shirt to wander up and down her side soothingly.

“Can I talk to you about something?” he whispers, feeling his heart rate kick up against his will.

She nods.

Shawn’s been sitting on it for days. For the first few, he considered bailing, removing himself before he got any more involved with the complication of all of this. For the next, he was numb. After that, he took a small step back in and realized what he really wanted, if she could give it to him. He wants to hear it from her from the beginning.

“I know about your miscarriage.”

Val’s eyes flick up from his bobbing adams apple. “What?”

“Last week at the hospital. It was totally by accident. I heard Bea talking about it with Raf. She got upset, saying she wasn’t there for you when you needed her. I just… I want you to know you don’t have to tell me anything. You don’t owe me that. But it felt wrong knowing and not telling you that I know.”

Val’s face heats. She closes her eyes. “Oh my god.”

“I’m sorry,” Shawn murmurs, nosing at her ear, “They didn’t mean to.”

Val presses her face away from him into her pillow. She’s quiet, breathing hard. Shawn stays close, tightening his arms around her, resisting the panic rising in him that urges him to flee. He holds fast and waits it out.

“His name is Rafael.”

Shawn blinks and lifts his face off her shoulder, tilting his head to look down at her. She’s staring blankly out the window.

“What?”

“My son. His name is Rafael Miguel Moreno. He died on March 4th, but his due date was July 21st.”

Shawn’s head spins with questions. He spits out the first one he can get his mouth around.

“Is that why you were gone in the afternoon? We were in Miami on the 21st.”

Val shifts. “I went to church.”

Shawn decides to leave that one alone for now. “So… he was…”

“I was five months pregnant,” she explains calmly.

“Five months,” Shawn breathes.

Five months. Shawn can’t imagine losing something that’s been with him every day for five months, taking up his whole life, becoming his future. He can’t imagine loving something that much just to have it taken away.

“His father’s name was Sam,” Val continues, voice steady and eyes fixed on a spot out the window like she’s told the story so many times she knows it by heart and doesn’t actually have to be present for it to come out of her.

“Sam and I met my freshman year at Miami. He was a year older and played on the club soccer team. We were very serious from the beginning. I think for a while Raf thought the reason I was quitting Streets was because of Sam but the truth is Sam was as confused as anyone else was when I left the band. He was supportive, though. It meant I got more time with him.

“Everyone thought Sam and I were going to get married after college. My mom had gone and gotten her wedding dress out of storage to “air it out,”” Val chuckles, the first sign of life in her body since she started her story, “But I got pregnant in November last year.

“Sam was freaked. He stayed, but he was freaked. By November I had already applied for this art conservation program at Oxford and he was waiting tables by the beach so he could be ready to pick up and move with me if I got in. When we decided to keep Rafael, we agreed I would decline the program offer if I got it. We got a bigger apartment with my parents’ help and started buying nursery furniture. The pregnancy was tough from the beginning. I was sick all the time, always going to the doctor. I could barely move. It was a miracle I graduated on time after all of it.

“I went in for a regular prenatal ultrasound and that’s when I found out. Sam wasn’t with me that day – he usually liked to come to the appointments but he couldn’t get someone to cover his shift, so I was alone. The nurse left for a few minutes and brought my OB in to tell me. She explained that my uterus’s shape had probably caused it. She gave me a pamphlet about miscarriages and left me alone in there for a while. I remember I left my feet up in the stirrups for a few minutes. Like… like I was expecting them to come back in and double check and say no, they’d made a mistake, he was just fine. That he was still alive.”

Shawn hangs on every word. As mechanically and robotically as she began, he feels her diving deeper, giving more detail than she’s used to. He feels her trembling in his arms like she’s cold, but she’s sweating.

“They never actually said it to me, that I’d have to deliver him. Even the pamphlet didn’t tell me, not exactly. It used vague language like “completing the miscarriage,” or something like that. They gave me medication to induce labor. They sent me home.”

Her breathing goes unsteady. Shawn holds a little tighter like he thinks she might go flying into pieces if he doesn’t.

“So I went home. I told Sam. We got into bed and didn’t leave it for 48 hours. We went back to the hospital and I was in labor for 14 hours. I… I didn’t see him at first. I didn’t know how… I mean, I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to speak again if I saw him like that. I think Sam followed them when they took him away. I don’t really remember now. My mom stayed with me. Raf and my dad were outside the room, I think.

“I went home with Sam. I was sore for a few days. My mom stayed with us for a while in Rafael’s room, in the nursery. I didn’t go in there for months but when I finally did, his crib and the changing table we got were gone. I think it was good that she did that for me so I didn’t have to. She also drove me to therapy every day for a week before I started going to class again. After that, she called me every night to check and make sure I’d gone.

“Within a month, Sam moved out. He… he didn’t like that I was going to class again. He wanted me to take the rest of the semester off and finish later. Sometime that month I also got my acceptance to Oxford and told him I’d accept it. That was the last straw, I think. And we never fought, we never even really talked about it. One day he told he he was leaving so I helped him pack and he went. And that was it. I finished school, I graduated, I came home and Raf needed a merch girl so I went.”

Her voice remains smooth and clear through her tears. Shawn rubs his away into the skin of her shoulder where her shirt has slid down. He struggles to keep his breathing regulated so she doesn’t notice. But she’s Val, so she notices. She turns in his arms and they’re both faced with watching each other cry over something they can’t change. Val lifts a hand to his cheek and offers a watery smile.

“I’m so sorry,” Shawn chokes, shaking his head, kissing into her palm that’s damp with his tears, “I’m– I can’t–”

“I know,” she whispers, “It’s hard to hear. Things like that shouldn’t happen. Not to women who are planning a baby shower and then have to cancel it to plan a funeral instead.”

Shawn’s chest aches. He sobs into her hand, feeling her fingers card through his hair to try to soothe him. He squeezes his eyes shut and berates himself as he gasps for air.

_She doesn’t need this. She’s lived through this. She doesn’t need you fucking crying about it into her chest like it’s your heartbreak. It’s not your heartbreak._

But, a little voice whispers in the back of his frantic mind, Val’s heartbreaks feel like his. So though she’s had time with this one, though she’s seen it through this far and remains as whole as she can be, this is a fresh crack down the center of his heart and he’s never felt anything like it.

“I don’t understand,” he rasps, “How– how can you… even get out of bed in the morning? How did you live through it?”

Val’s dark eyes go darker. She leans in and presses her lips to his forehead as she speaks.

“Guilt does weird things to grief, I think. I think you go one way or the other. You either can’t move, can’t think, can’t breathe for as long as it takes to feel even a smidgen of normal again, or you can’t stop moving. I think that’s part of why Sam and I couldn’t get through it together. I don’t know how you do it if the guilt makes you each function differently. Up until that point, Sam and I worked perfectly together. But guilt tore it apart.”

Shawn tries to ground himself by dragging his fingers through her hair and praying that twisting the long, dark strands around his hands will steady him.

“You felt guilty for losing the baby?”

Val gives him a heavy, sad smile. Shawn sees something there he’s never noticed before – he sees months full of emotional scars he doesn’t recognize, has never seen in himself. It chills him to the bone.

“I felt guilty for not wanting him.”

Shawn’s breath goes still in his chest. She swallows and looks away.

“I wasn’t happy when I got pregnant. I didn’t want to tell Sam. I was going to go to Planned Parenthood and make an appointment for an abortion. I was going to leave this behind, let it serve as a harsh reminder of why you should always take your birth control pill on time, and move on. I was going to go to school and get my degree and marry Sam.

“I never called Planned Parenthood. I don’t really know why, to this day. I tried a couple times. I picked up the phone and my fingers wouldn’t dial. I wasn’t scared of the abortion. I wasn’t scared of God smiting me. It just felt like… it wasn’t supposed to happen. Like I was coming up against a wall of fate that the universe built that said “no, sorry, wrong turn, go the other way.” But even still, I wasn’t excited. I bought a crib. I picked a name. I told my mother. But I–”

Val claps a hand over her mouth. Shawn freezes. He waits.

Val’s body shudders. She clamps down on his arm so hard Shawn flinches but stays put.

“I never wanted him. Not until he was gone.”

And there it is. The stone that gets tossed at the dam and cracks it open like it’s made of glass.

Val releases something she figures has been building for some time, since long before she crept into that tomb-like church and begged the Virgin Mary for forgiveness for her selfishness. That day, she asked for strength for Sam. She begged her unborn son for pardon for not wanting to be his mother. She prayed that maybe God would forgive her for her wickedness and let her sleep again.

And all she got was silence.

So here, in the arms of this 19-year-old boy, she releases it, whatever this is. He struggles against the waves, willing himself to be strong, but he’s never had to have this kind of strength before. He wouldn’t recognize it even if he displayed it. He just has to try.

She falls asleep before too long, worn to the bone. Shawn follows closely, pulling his fingers through her hair.

+

It’s after 1am when she wakes up again. Her face is tight and dry from all the salty tears. Her hair sticks to her cheeks and is pinned under him where he’s rolled almost on top of her from behind her. She wipes at her face haphazardly and her wriggling wakes him up.

He shifts behind her and snuffles into her neck.

“Hey.”

“Hi,” she answers gently.

“You ok?”

She smiles. She loves that it’s the first thing he says.

“I’m ok.”

He nods into her shoulder and shifts with a chuckle so less of his heavily muscled weight is resting on her. She misses it as soon as it’s gone. He settles back behind her and pulls her into his chest.

“Thank you for telling me.”

“Thank you for listening. I know it was a lot.”

Shawn’s quiet. He closes his eyes against the rising feeling in his chest. He shoves it away with a kiss on her neck.

“Yeah.”

Val lies there, limp with exhaustion, feeling like the blood in her veins runs a little warmer and more freely now that she’s told him everything, now that he knows about her son. Her body is calm, her brain is quiet, and there’s no way to ignore it or push it down anymore.

“I’m so in love with you,” she purrs like she’s said it half a million times. She closes her eyes and stretches, yawning gently.

Shawn remains perfectly still because he’s sure he couldn’t have heard that correctly. His ears buzz. His breath falls quiet. His arm goes stiff around her.

“Oh god, I love you,” he pants into her neck. And it comes sweeping in.

His body sings for her. He feels everything as though it’s magnetically drawn in to each part of her and if she moves, he’ll move too. It’s so automatic he doesn’t know how he hasn’t felt it until now. He’s pretty sure this is the only feeling he’ll feel ever again.

Val turns her chin up so his nose brushes her cheek. “You do?”

“I do. Fuck, I do. Vally, baby, I love you. So much.”

He feels her pulse go haywire under his arm that’s slung over her chest just before she silences his mind with a searing kiss. She squeaks into it, turning her head and opening her mouth like she’s trying to swallow him whole. He aches for her, finding ways to get closer like it’ll make it better and not just ten times worse.

“I don’t want this to end,” she admits breathlessly, talking into his mouth before she rolls her hips back needily and sucks his lower lip into her mouth. His brow furrows as he groans, responding with a cant of his own hips. He’s met with the realization that he got hard in his sleep and now she’s making it worse.

“Doesn’t have to, baby,” he swears, needily licking at her jaw as his hand drags broad and heavy up her thigh to pull it up and over his leg.

“We can do it. I can come with you to Oxford before the next album. Can come write with you, be with you. Please,” he pleads, dropping his fingers between her legs and finding his work is mostly done for him. He pinches her clit beneath the drenched cotton of her panties.

Val writhes. “Oh god, yes,” she pants, “Please. Need you with me, baby. Stay with me, be with me.”

Shawn nods hysterically. “Yeah. Gonna come be with you. Forever. Yes.”

They don’t have their wits about them enough to wriggle out of their underwear, so Shawn lifts his leaking cock out of his boxers and pulls her panties aside, teasing her just like she taught him.

“Not now,” she begs, feeling her heat pulse against the head of his cock as he drags it against her swollen clit.

He grins into her shoulder and nips at the mark he’s leaving. “Shhhh. I got you, sweetheart.”

Shawn angles his hips and sinks into her all at once, leaving them both gasping swears under their breath. Val shoves her face into the pillow to quiet her desperate moan.

“Please,” she hisses, “Please fuck me. Need to feel you.”

Shawn nods, feels himself twitch deep inside her. He slides almost all the way out and back in again. Val gasps and arches her back away from him with a growl. He’s never heard that before. He repeats the motion and watches her eyelashes flutter.

“Oh, holy fuck,” she cries, scrunching her hand into the sheets to hold on, “That’s so good. Fuck. Please, Shawn.”

He’ll give her anything she needs. He strokes long and hard like she likes and feels every moan she gives him soak into his skin to mix with the sweat. He presses his face into her temple and grips her thigh like he’s trying to fuse their bodies. She thinks it might be working.

Perhaps it was being without him for a few days, or maybe it was the emotional release earlier followed by this physical one now, but she’s on the verge of coming before she knows it. She croaks it from between bitten, swollen lips and turns her head to watch him as he makes her come like he couldn’t only weeks ago.

Shawn smoothes a hand up under her shirt, over her stomach to squeeze the sensitive flesh of her breast right over her thrashing heart.

“Shawn,” she gasps, clinging to his forearm when her body gives out. He curls his hand around her cheek and plants his forehead against hers as he rolls his hips through her perfect orgasm, snapping one, two, three more times for himself until he comes hard deep inside her. She tugs at his hair, scraping her nails against the back of his neck, whispering comfortingly in Spanish as his orgasm fades.

When it does, his eyes open and her smile is there, making him whisper it again.

“Love you.”

She nods, giggling and closes her eyes.

+

_She screams so horribly. Her face goes purplish red as the beads of sweat form a crown over her brow. Her bare toes curl in the cold air around the stirrups._

_The screaming ceases long enough for her to catch her breath and sob his name again, “Rafael.”_

_She shrieks again, long and clear and so pained that he knows it’s not the physical pain she feels right now, it’s the anguish of losing a child before she got to meet him._

_He’s helpless, worthless, standing beside her, praying for it to end. He finds himself hating everything around him – hating the doctor for not being able to end this faster, hating Sam for getting her pregnant, even hating the stillborn she’s forced to deliver._

_She screams again._

+

He wakes up wrecked after the dream, panting, like he’s trying to suck the life back into his body. He sits up. His stomach convulses. He lurches out of bed and sprints to the bathroom to empty his stomach. He coughs into the porcelain and closes his bloodshot eyes.

_Alex holds a pick between his fingers and fiddles with the mic while the anticipatory silence rushes like a current at his ankles. He smirks at the girls in the front row who can see the scribbled out setlist at his feet and know what’s coming. He flexes his grip around his guitar and looks out over their heads, reveling._

_He closes his eyes, steps into the mic and lets go._

_“Lights out, I still hear the rain, these images that fill my head, now keep my fingers from making mistakes, tell my voice what it takes to speak up, speak up and keep my conscience clean when I wake…”_

Shawn’s breath doesn’t even out after he gets sick, or after he sits back against the cool sting of the tub. He fists his hands in his hair and wills it, knows if he can quiet his mind, his body will follow.

He fights against it, but it’s consuming him. The panic rises, it takes him by the neck, it throttles him.

_Alex launches into the chorus, staggering his legs like he does when he plays hard like this, pouring more energy into this song for a reason that feels mystical and beyond him._

_“Don’t make this easy, I want you to mean it, Jasey, say you mean it. You’re dressed to kill I’m calling you out, don’t waste your time on me.”_

Shawn manages to stand on wobbly knees and plant his hands against the bathroom counter. He avoids the shame on his face by looking anywhere else – the faucet, his shaky hands, the strange little container of q-tips by the sink.

But he can’t hide from this. This feels bigger than him. He trembles as his eyes close over new, fresh tears. He feels so weak and so young.

_“Now there’s an aching in my back, the stabbing pain that says I lack the common sense, the confidence to bring an end to promises that I make in times of desperate conversation, hoping my night could be better than theirs in the end… just say when…”_

His eyes lift finally. His mouth is dropped open with the force of his breath. His shoulders are hunched and so tense that he looks ready to snap in half. His hair is greasy and frizzy from where she pulled at it desperately like it was a lifeline. His eyes have taken on a greenish tint around the tears.

He drops his head again and sobs. He doesn’t see a man there in the mirror staring back at him, he sees a boy. He can fight it all he wants, like little boys often do, or he can square up and say it to himself.

“You can’t do this.”

He cringes at the whispered promises he made to her in near-sleep about Oxford, about walks by the river, about taking her home to meet his family, about everything around forever.

_Alex goes still and drops his guitar to swing against his thighs as he clutches at the mic. The energy floods him as he and his audience speak volumes to each other through the same words and it feels so big he can’t put it into words. He just drops into it and drowns._

_“I’ve never told a lie, and that makes me a liar. I’ve never made a bet but we gambled with desire. I’ve never lit a match with intent to start a fire, but recently the flames are getting out of control.”_

Shawn rakes his fingers down his face and walks quietly back into the room, shaking his head. He reaches for his pants and winces at the rattle of his belt, but she remains heavily asleep.

She always slept so good with him there.

_“Call me a name, kill me with words, forget about me, it’s what I deserve.”_

He dresses in silence, chest clenching around more threatening tears that he can’t risk letting out because if she wakes up, he can’t do it.

_“I was your chance to get out of this town but I ditched the car and left you to wait outside.”_

He drops the pen back to the desk and leaves the note where his pillow lies smelling like him. He allows himself once final glance back. She’s peaceful. The furrow in her brow is gone.

He has to let himself out of the room before his sobs explode out of his throat and wake her.

_“I hope the air will serve to remind you that my heart is as cold as the clouds of your breath and my words are as timed as the beating in my chest.”_

+

Val’s eyes open. She feels light and cold. It’s startling.

She turns over and sees the folded note. A sound leaves her throat garbled up from deep in her chest. She doesn’t need to read it to know what it says.

She falls back into the pillows, breathless and off balance.

Beside her, on hotel stationary in black Sharpie,

_**I can’t. I’m sorry.** _


	11. FINAL & Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Language, vintage Something Corporate, oversugaring tea amidst Londoners

_Lucky 13._

The emblem of the 2007 Warped Tour has surrounded her all summer, but it feels especially present today somehow, on the last day of tour in Carson, California.

It seems a contradiction in terms, lucky 13, which Val supposes is probably the idea. She knows it’s a cheeky nod to the counterculture vibe that Warped Tour represents, but it also feels representative of her in some ways.

Val’s had a very contemplative and quiet three weeks since she gathered her things and walked out of that hotel room, leaving the scribbled note on the pillow behind her. She’s turned inward, no longer hounded by her conflict with Raf or Bea, able to focus on herself for the first time in a few months. And she’s picked out a few things that coincide with the theme of the summer.

Val is often reckless, and sometimes maternal. Val is book smart, and also street smart. Val embraces academia, but sometimes thinks she could drown herself in music and never read books again. Val is vibrant even when she is broken.

Humans are made up of contradictions, Val knows that as well as anyone. She is not suddenly realizing that she is not only one thing – her dichotomies are not really news to her. But as she thinks about the people she loves most, she sees the way certain parts of their personalities bump up against other parts and fight for dominance, and she loves them more richly for it.

Humans are made up of contradictions and Val is embracing that from here on out. She arrived on the first day of Warped wearing a blink t-shirt with a textbook on Ming dynasty art in her trunk. All summer, she studied the ways she doesn’t fit in here in the scene anymore like she was looking for reasons to make a clean split and join her adult life across the pond. But the truth is, she failed. She looked for the ways that made her feel different from this world that she helped in her small way to build, but it’s as much a home to her as academia is and it will never truly feel foreign, no matter how many hours she spends crouched over a 9th century vase with a tiny brush. So her biggest contradiction, her inner strife over choosing academia over pop punk, it fades into her skin like her tattoo, as much a part of her as the dimple in her chin or the curls in her hair that she decided not to straighten today.

Val walks the grounds as the sun begins to fade. The last sets of the day are in progress or being set up. With earbuds in playing Boys Like Girls, she strolls between booths of merch people clinking beers and congratulating each other on a summer well done, between groups of kids comparing signed merch, between crew guys beginning to break down and pack away equipment to be pulled out next June for another go around.

She imagines who she’ll be next June.

She walks slowly on her way to Smartpunk. It seems her body is just as hesitant as her mind to attend this one last set, but she’s doing it anyway. She’s not sure why – to prove a point to herself? To indulge in the talent one last time? To try to believe in a miracle?

She doesn’t like any of those options. She settles on curiosity and keeps her feet moving in uncharacteristically small steps.

She stands at the back, nice and far from any moshing action, by the All Time Low booth so she can sit on the edge of the table without getting grief from Vinny Vegas.

She wears a small smirk as the space around her fills in. It seems every Warped attendee is a Forefront convert now. She doesn’t blame them. But damn is it a far cry from their first sets in June.

They’re announced over the yelping cries of fans wearing out their last screams of summer. They hustle out in a group, with their tall, gawky frontman bringing up the rear as usual. He plants himself in front of the mic and swings one powerful arm above his head with a wild grin to wave as his adoring fans.

And it begins.

They put on a hell of a show. It’s not a given – just because you’re good in the studio doesn’t mean you have the chemistry or energy to do well live. There are special bands that make a live concert a nearly religious experience – her friends in Paramore and All Time Low among them. Forefront has gotten their sea legs this summer and won’t easily lose them now.

She takes the time to notice each member – passionate, goofy Francis on rhythm guitar, hard-hitting, soft-spoken Seth on the drums, raucous pretty boy bassist Bobby. And then Shawn, switching between his keyboard and guitar effortlessly like he was born with a damn instrument in his hand, charisma leaking out of him all over the stage, making everyone in a fifteen mile radius certain that he’s born to do this.

She closes her eyes through the end of “Open End” and waits for “Swim” to start. When Shawn switches back to the keys at this point in the set, he usually engages in some chit chat with the boys or yammers on to the fans about how much they inspire him or whatever. But he’s quiet and the air around the stage is tense because everyone knows something’s up.

Val opens her eyes. He’s where she expected him to be, propped at the edge of his bench with his fingers resting over the keys, looking down at them frozen.

“We’re gonna play you a new one today.”

Val’s stomach falls out and flops into the dirt at her feet. She’s glad she’s sitting on the table because she can’t feel her legs. She overwhelmed by certainty that whatever’s about to happen, it’s going to be personal. And it’s going to hurt like hell.

Shawn is quiet for a few more electrically charged moments before he closes his eyes, rolls his shoulders forward and leans into the mic, singing before the instruments join him.

“Close your eyes and I will be swimming, lullabies fill your room, and I will be singing, singing only to you. Don’t forget I’ll hold your head, watch the night sky fading red.”

His fingers work furiously against the keys. The piano line is so intricate and shows off his talent for the instrument in a way she’s never seen. He keeps his eyes down at his hands as they dance, distracting him enough from the content of the lyrics so he can get through them without breaking down like he did when he wrote it.

“But as you sleep, and no one is listening, I will lift you off your feet, I’ll keep you from sinking. Don’t you wake up yet, cause soon I’ll be leaving you. Soon I’ll be leaving you, but you won’t be leaving me.”

Val closes her eyes again and lets herself fall back into their last night, into their frantic lovemaking punctuated by irresponsible, unkeepable promises. She thinks about the weight of his legs between hers as she drifted off with him in the last full night sleep she got on tour. She remembers the way she let her hand rest on his side of the bed to try to tell when he left by how cool to the touch it felt.

“In the car, the radio leaves me searching for your star, a constellation of frustration driving home, singing my thoughts back to me, and watching heartache on TV.”

_It feels so good to get this out,_ Shawn thinks as he hits each note just the way he wants it. This song came spilling out after their last night together in a way that felt too easy. After all that he put her through, he doesn’t deserve to have his art come easy. But art is never fair.

“But as you sleep, and no one is listening, I will lift you off your feet, I’ll keep you from sinking. Don’t you wake up yet, cause soon I’ll be leaving you. Soon I’ll be leaving you, but you won’t be leaving me.”

By the second chorus, Val knows the words. It’s hard not to zero in when you know they’re about you. She notes the way the crowd reacts, arms in the air waving at him like he’s Jimi Hendrix, cheering along, eating up everything he gives them.

_Good,_ she thinks, _he deserves it._

The lead into the bridge is still piano heavy, but his fingers know the strokes of the keys as well as his heart does, so he gets to sit up and look around, grinning as their fans cheer, watching the sky explode vibrant summer watercolors over the trees on the horizon. A thick, soothing breeze passes through.

He looks back through to where he saw her a few songs ago. He lets his gaze stay there long enough that she knows now that she’s been spotted. He licks his lips and leans into the mic, but keeps his eyes up at her, perched on the ATL merch table like she owns it.

He repeats the lyrics even though each word feels like tearing at scabs that won’t be healing for a while. He pours it all in, everything he has left, every piece of I’m sorry, every hint of thank you, every whisper of I love you, it soars out over the heads of the fans who love the words but don’t know the boy that wrote them.

They’re for her.

As the final note fades out under sweeping cries of gratitude from the scene kids that came to celebrate their home and community, Val stands, brushes the dust from her skinny jeans and secures her earbuds back in place. With a final nodding smile to Vinny, she turns from the stage and walks off in gigantic, loping steps to read about John Singer Sergeant and listen to _Dookie_ on repeat.

+++++++

_December 18th, 2017_

Shawn doesn’t often fit most musician stereotypes – he doesn’t drink too heavily, he doesn’t do any drug harder than weed, he’s kind of a serial monogamist.

But he does love a moody walk along a body of water.

With a pair of good headphones, a carefully curated playlist and a path along the water, Shawn can figure out anything. When he gets stuck on a song, he goes to the water. When he’s in a weird spot with someone he’s dating, he goes to the water. He doesn’t like to get too spiritual about it, but it does feel somehow clarifying.

So one afternoon in London when the sun is out and the Londoners are out with it, Shawn decides to join them. He’s there on business promoting the latest Forefront album with a Live Lounge performance on BBC Radio 1 with Nick Grimshaw. He’s jetlagged and a little turned around by the Underground system like he usually is when in London but he’s otherwise feeling just fine. He just needs a walk by the water today. He tries not to look too closely at why.

He bundles up in the Barbour jacket his mum got him last Christmas and sets off down the stairs into the opulent Savoy hotel lobby decked out with a Christmas tree in every corner and fresh garland wrapped around every non-moving object in sight. He smiles at it – nobody does Christmas like the Brits. He’s looking forward to going home in a few days to see his mum and the rest of his family and decompress for a few weeks before heading back over to the UK to write and record their next album.

He gets reflective like this – the combination of the water and the music offer him perspective he can’t usually reach otherwise. He tucks his hands in his pockets and sets off through the garden that opens up into the Victoria Embankment Gardens, usually lush and green in the spring and summer, full of life and people. He likes it like this, though, cold and quiet and almost like a little secret.

2017 has been good to him. Forefront played seven new countries this year on their world tour in celebration of their sixth studio album. He’s gotten a little better over the years about being more present in those moments rather than looking forward anxiously to the next album and the expectations that surround it. That attitude really spoiled the last few records, but the new friends he’s made in the industry have helped guide him through that. He’s even becoming friends with the Irish guy from One Direction now, though they had very different paths to the music industry. He seems like a cool guy.

Personally, 2017 wasn’t really a banner year. He broke up with Jess in April after almost a full year. He’s had a few of those lately – relationships that start hot and don’t make it past a year mark. He should take a closer look at that and figure out why he can’t seem to stay in a relationship for longer than 11 months, but he’s too tired to think about it now. It’s been a long fuckin’ year.

It’s been a long ten years, actually, since _Joy Ride._ He thinks back to the show they played at home in Toronto over the summer to celebrate the big anniversary. They played the whole album start to finish, something they’ve never gotten to do. Being immersed in it like that brings back a lot of memories of that summer when everything really kicked off. Not all those memories are ones Shawn likes to think about.

He doesn’t think about Valentina much. It’s by design. He doesn’t even play “As You Sleep” as often as it’s requested. It just… doesn’t feel healthy for him. He’ll pull it out every once in a while when curiosity gets the best of him, when it’s been long enough that he forgets how sharply he still feels every word of that song. He usually regrets it.

He lets himself wonder about her sometimes, like today when he’s knee deep in nostalgia anyway. He still sees Raf and the other Streets guys. They went on a hiatus for a while around 2013 but are back again recording a new record somewhere in Malibu, from what Shawn’s heard. When he sees them, he doesn’t ask about her. He doesn’t want her knowing he’s asking. And he thinks sometimes he doesn’t want to know what she’s really up to, he’d rather imagine.

He falls into his favorite daydream. He likes to think she stayed in the UK (he always felt like that was the place for her to end up). Maybe she got a job in conservation at Oxford or Cambridge or some other hoity-toity university. Maybe she met a nice, polite, skinny, bookish English guy who looks at her like a miracle every time she speaks to him. Maybe they had a small wedding at his local church and his family loves her because she’s colorful and articulate. Maybe they have dogs – sheepdogs or setters or something, good country dogs. And maybe they’ve had a little girl.

That’s where he usually shuts the daydream down. For obvious reasons.

But when he doesn’t, he thinks about her and who she might be. He thinks about thick, lush curls flopped over a tiny forehead. He thinks about pouty little lips and a chin dimple that matches her mother’s. He thinks about little feet that kick hard because she’d have to be strong, of course.

Now that he’s letting himself think about it, he thinks maybe she’d look kinda like the kid that’s staring at him, reaching out from her pram that’s parked next to the bench he’s strolling past. He smiles at her and she beams back with a grin that has only two teeth. It makes Shawn laugh.

He glances over at her lucky mum or dad.

And it’s almost like he expected it, like it had to be her. I mean, this kid really couldn’t have been anyone but Val’s. She’s just… so Val.

So when Shawn looks her over, from her sweeping dark curls and her leather trousers and her ankle boots, he’s barely even surprised to see her. He just tips his head back and chuckles at the universe.

“Hey mister,” she calls, and her voice sets his skin rough with goosebumps, “Can I have your autograph?”

Shawn lets go of where he’s holding on to the wrought iron fence above the banks of the Thames and walks over, his chelsea boots scratching at the frosty stone.

She doesn’t stand to greet him. She’s got a similar look on her face, bemused acknowledgement of fate and its tricks, like she was thinking about him too and they both somehow willed this to happen. Her long slender legs are crossed. She has one black leather-gloved hand in the pram in the grasp of her little girl who’s chewing on her finger and no longer paying Shawn any attention.

“Hey, Vally,” he sighs. He doesn’t mean to call her that, it just happens. She doesn’t visibly react beyond a slightly deeper dimple in her cheek, so he figures he scraped by with that one.

“Were you on your way somewhere?” she asks, glancing back as if she realized she might be taking him away from something.

He shakes his head. “No, I just– I’m staying at the Savoy and I like these gardens. I just wanted a walk.” He has enough presence of mind to pause his music. He doesn’t bother to mention it’s an old Streets song. That she wrote.

“We like it out here. We live over by the Farringdon stop but we take the train out here because we like the waterfowl.”

Val looks down at the pram as she speaks. Shawn takes that as an invitation to acknowledge her more formally.

“Who’s this?” he asks breathlessly.

“This is Alice,” Val replies with as much pride as he’s ever heard from any mother, “Alice Fernanda Moreno, she’s nine months old and very hefty for her age because we run a body positive household and she loves mashed carrot and swede.”

Shawn lifts a hand and waves in that open-close way he does like he’s a big toddler himself. Alice kicks hard and squeals at him.

“She’s… so beautiful,” he marvels. Val’s smug smile tells him she agrees. Shawn doesn’t share his next thought because it feels like a line and he doesn’t want to go there.

_Because she looks exactly like you._

“I picked out a real pretty one,” she jokes, tightening the wrap of the thick wool blankets around Alice as she yawns.

Shawn continues staring at her openly, trying to pick out features that could belong to any potential father, but as far as he can tell, Alice is simply a clone of Val. It’s Val’s throat clearing that brings him back.

“Sit, Mendes,” she suggests, patting the warped wooden bench. Shawn lowers himself on the other side of the pram as Val rocks it back and forth with her foot.

“She’s been fussy today, but it’s naptime. She has to give in eventually,” Val mutters like she’s reasoning with herself. Shawn grins.

“You have a daughter.”

Val doesn’t look up from the pram as she rocks it. She just nods and snuggles into her prim peacoat.

“I have a daughter.”

Shawn can’t bring himself to ask. She’s wearing gloves so he can’t see if she’s wearing a ring. He stays quiet and studies her instead.

She looks largely the same, barely even older than she did at 22. Her sense of style is maybe the only thing he can see that’s changed in the ten years since he’s seen her last. There’s something comforting in that.

He wonders if he seems different. He works out more now, eats right. He’s definitely put on a whole lot of muscle since he was scrounging for burger scraps on Warped. He’s gotten a few more tattoos she can’t see. He also has an actual stylist now, which is sometimes weird, but he’s elevated the black skinnies, Vans and band tees to black skinnies, $800 boots and silk button-ups. So there’s that.

He’s still got that lip ring though.

But… he wonders if he _seems_ different. If he carries himself differently. If he comes off more confident, more calm, less wide-eyed and wondering.

Because she seems the same. She’s always glowed from the inside out like this. Maybe the glow feels a little stronger now. Or maybe it’s just because she glows through herself and her baby girl all at once. Shawn sits back and watches them – he could bathe in it all day.

“You know it’s been ten years?” she breathes.

Shawn nods slowly. “I know. Kinda feels like 40.”

She laughs and a piece of him astral projects back to nights tangled up in her bunk kissing her neck and trying to keep her quiet so her brother won’t come mock them from outside the bunk curtain.

“It does,” she muses, “But sometimes it feels like fifteen minutes ago, too.”

Shawn tips his head back and sniffs, looking up through a tall pine as its needles shiver.

“Has your decade been good to you?” she murmurs. He lifts his head back up. She’s staring down at the baby.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s been great. We’ve toured a lot, done a few more albums. The guys and I, I mean, you know us, we’d push each other in front of a bus most days, but we’re brothers and maybe obsessed with each other, too. We’re on a great ride.”

Val lifts her eyes to his briefly, all too knowingly, and lowers them back to the pram. “That’s good.”

Shawn shakes his head. “That’s not even at all what you meant, was it?”

“Nope.”

Shawn goes quiet, contemplative. Val waits him out until he’s ready.

“It’s harder than I thought it would be,” he chokes finally, “Everything about it. Writing after _Joy Ride,_ it was… it got bad. I mean, I was ok, like fundamentally, but I didn’t feel good. We had so many eyes on us. We had no idea what to do, just like no one else does. Some tours were great, some were bad. And the whole deal makes everything else harder. It’s hard on my family, my friends. I… I haven’t been in an actual good relationship in… five years, at least. This year was better. We’ve gotten our feet back under us. I let it all out in the last album, and that helped.”

“I know, I heard it.”

Shawn looks up from Val’s hands in the pram. For the first time all morning, he’s really, truly shocked to the bone.

“You did?”

Val doesn’t answer him exactly, just mutters something about needing to get the baby inside and announces they’ll head down the lane for a cup of tea. She leads them to a little corner coffee shop made for hipsters, not for women with very expensive prams, but Val doesn’t seem to care and parks in the corner by the fire. She layers down, stripping off her scarf and coat to a black turtleneck. Her cheeks go warm as she settles in and orders for them.

Shawn keeps his mouth shut and tries not to do the mental math of how many of the songs he’s released in the last ten years have been written about her, and exactly how many of them she might have noticed are definitely, totally written about her.

She folds her manicured hands together and looks up at him. His brain mercifully shuts off.

“It took a while after that summer for me to get there, but about three years later, I was around Oxford with some friends and I saw your latest album, on vinyl no less, in some indie record store. I suddenly got this feeling that I had to stop my whole life for a minute and go in and buy it. I bought it and the one that came before it, I said goodbye to my friends and I shut myself up in my flat for a couple days with a bottle of whiskey and just… let it happen.”

Shawn winces. “Wish you’d have just skipped over _Making Midnight_.”

Val smirks. “I wish I had, too.”

Shawn scoffs and leans back in his chair, mock offended. Val giggles and dumps an ungodly amount of sugar in her Earl Grey.

“I was glad to just hear your voice again, actually. I’d done a good job of avoiding it. Too good, maybe, because it was a real shock to the system when I heard it again.”

Shawn knows how that feels. He went through a Val cleanse too, a much shorter one because he doesn’t have her willpower. And then he heard a song she wrote with Alex Gaskarth for All Time Low’s _Dirty Work_ and he let her back in.

“From then, I just bought your records when they came out. I really loved this last one. It really… I dunno, it just really felt like you, I guess.”

Shawn keeps his head down as he stares at his tea. He hears Alice coo. He looks up to see Val lifting her out of her pram to bounce her in her lap, baby in one arm, cup of tea in the other.

“God, it’s so fuckin’ good to see you,” he croaks, shaking his head a little, “Especially…”

He trails off, unwilling to finish. He ducks his head again.

“Especially with a kid I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to have?” Val guesses.

Shawn glances up and nods.

“Do you want to hear about this?” Val murmurs, ignoring Alice as she yanks at some silky curls.

Shawn chews on his lower lip. “Yeah, I think I do.”

It’s Val’s turn to look down. She stirs the mountain of slowly dissolving sugar at the bottom of her mug and sighs.

“She’s just mine. Last year I started to get a little anxious about my biological clock, especially given the last time I got pregnant. I saw a fertility specialist and we discussed my history and she agreed if I want to have children, it’s probably better to start now. So I went in for IVF. On the second cycle, I got pregnant with Alice. The pregnancy was complicated, but my doctor was a saint and did everything absolutely right. The birth went perfectly. So now it’s me and Alice against the world.”

Shawn slides his tongue against his lower lip, taps his foot impatiently against the leg of his chair. “Just you two?”

“Just us two,” Val replies easily, “There were a couple guys in and out before her, but I haven’t gone out with anyone since I got pregnant. I didn’t feel the need. I just wanted to focus on her. I’m glad I did.”

They’re quiet for a few minutes, reflective. Then Val stands and looks down at him.

“Would you mind holding her for a minute? I need to use the loo.”

Shawn bites his lip and nods, standing to complete the transfer. Alice is asleep in her mother’s arms, but, as Val explains with a chuckle, “she’s a snuggle whore – she’ll go with anybody for a little cuddle.”

Shawn sits. Alice curls up against his chest and pops her tiny lips in her sleep. She radiates warmth from her little swaddled bundle. As he stares down at her, Shawn fundamentally understands why Val hasn’t needed anyone else in her life since Alice arrived. He thinks if Val let him, he’d never put her down.

Alice stretches a tiny arm out in her sleep and punches Shawn in the chest. He snickers, jostling his little bundle, but it doesn’t wake her. He starts to get comfortable, sliding down in the chair a bit so he can rock her, but Val’s hand on his shoulder startles him.

“It’s ok,” she says, “Keep her, if she’s not fussing. I’d rather she stay asleep.”

Shawn nods eagerly and strokes Alice’s back with his long, rough fingers. Val sits across the table with her elbows propped up like she’s physically restraining herself to keep from snatching her child out of his arms. It makes Shawn grin.

“You ok over there?”

Val blushes, caught. “It’s usually just the two of us. I don’t ever have to share her. I’m not used to jonesing.”

“I’ll give her back if you want,” Shawn mumbles reluctantly. Val giggles.

“No, it’s ok. She looks happy.”

Shawn hums. She does look happy.

“So are you working?” he asks quietly, not wanting to wake Alice.

Val nods. “We are, we work at the V&A in the medieval department. We just started back about a month ago after my maternity leave. The museum’s been very generous. They let me walk around with her strapped to my chest all day. She helps consult on various matters, charms my coworkers into letting me leave bottles of breastmilk in every fridge in the museum. I shifted from conservation to curation a few years ago, which is a steadier, more lucrative track. I think it’ll be better for us.”

_Us. We’re working at the V &A. We started back at the museum._ Shawn’s enamored. He goes pink and brushes through the curls on the back of Alice’s neck.

“Sounds like you’ve got a great partner here,” he quips.

Val is quiet for a minute. “We’re very happy together. But we get a little lonely sometimes. Like when it’s cold and mummy really doesn’t want to get out of bed but Alice is screaming bloody murder. Those are the only moments when this isn’t the greatest thing in the whole world.”

Shawn looks up. Val is watching him carefully. Before he can speak, she swallows and lowers her gaze.

“But we get along, you know. We’re ok.”

“Yeah,” Shawn says, “I know you are.”

They chat. They talk about Raf and his wife Rachel and their little ones – Val and Alice will be heading across the pond to spend Christmas with them and her parents. They talk about Bea and how she’s spent five years with the same guy up in Edinburgh and she seems actually happy. They talk about their near miss at Alex’s wedding last April – she came for the ceremony but had to skip out of the reception, Shawn the opposite. They chat through several more cups of tea, an array of pastries, and another nap cycle until it’s dark and quiet outside. Val stares mournfully out the window as she puts on her jacket with Alice back in her pram, gurgling quietly.

Shawn is silent, brow furrowed. He pays the tab with a ghost of a smile and thinks about walking back to his hotel to sit in his room with the TV to try to drown out this day. It’s… unappealing to say the least.

They walk to the door. Shawn holds it open for Val and Alice and considers that they probably look to anyone else like a young family that spent the day together and are headed home to a warm dinner and a cozy night in.

Val’s heart pounds in her ears faster than their boots’ steps on the crunchy ground. She wants to swallow the words, but she doesn’t think she can. Not with him.

“Would you like to walk us home?” she breathes.

Shawn’s smile is extraordinary. He looks up from Alice’s curious brown eyes.

“Yes, please.”


End file.
